The Exam Doc

  See the RCEM Website for the breakdown of stations   Personal Experience:   I sat this exam in January 2020, just before the pandemic came to Europe. I remember reading the papers the morning after, which were reporting high numbers of deaths from this terrible disease in Wuhan, China and I was worried that we would be dealing it with it soon after. Lo and behold here we are still trying to manage this pandemic in 2022! However, I digress. I started to prepare for this exam in late October 2019. I used the MRCEM OSCE book and started ticking them off as I went along. From Day 1 I started practicing my answers and my exams aloud and I think this was a huge help to me on the day as I had so much practice in. I decided to use the contents of the book to guide my study and thus studied each in chronological order. I would bulk up any deficits in the book either with my trusty Tally & O’ Connor (still going strong ten years later) and my Oxford Handbook. For m...

  FRCEM Intermediate/SBA   See RCEM Website for exam details   Personal Experience: I sat this exam whilst working in the Mater Emergency Department which is a notably busy ED in Ireland so working my study plan around my roster was tricky. Anyone working in EM has my full admiration as it is incredibly tough on your body changing shift patterns relentlessly. I found I had a lot less energy when studying for this exam as compared to the MCQ in intern year (which was also a very busy and demanding job). I started studying around late November for the sitting in early March. I didn’t get much done over the Christmas period between work and everything else, but it was still mentally reassuring to have started the mammoth task before the new year. I found the volume of work to get through very overwhelming and I definitely didn’t get it all done before the exam (for example I don't think I covered the infectious diseases chapter before the exam). I went in for th...

  MRCEM – MCQ (FRCEM Primary)   See RCEM Website for exam details Personal Experience: I sat this exam as an intern whilst I was working on my final 3 month post in Portiuncula University Hospital on an Obs&Gynae Rotation. I decided to sit the exam at the last minute before the closing date if I recall correctly. It was less than two months from when I started studying until I sat the exam. So I didn’t have as much time as I would have liked to prepare. I was also commuting an hour each way to work so I was limited in how many hours I was going to have to get ready. I used to slip away from theatre when there were breaks in between cases or on my lunch break and study for 20-40 minutes depending on the gap between cases or jobs needing done on the ward. In the evenings I would try to do 1-2 hours either in the hospital library or at home. On the weekends I reckon I spent about 3 hours a day max getting through the questions on the Pastest MCQ bank and reading ov...