Transcription
(upbeat music) Hi, my name is Dr Ali Mahdi, founder of the website Blood Academy. I want to welcome you to this video, an opportunity to learn more about the Royal College of Pathology, FRCPath Haematology exams.
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In this video, we speak to five haematology trainees based in the UK who've recently passed these challenging exams to get their tips on passing. Before we speak to them let's look at how these exams are structured.
The exams are made of two parts, the test knowledge and application in the four main disciplines of haematology: Haemato-oncology, transfusion medicine, general haematology, and coagulation. The part one exam is a one day theory exam made up of two papers. One paper comprises four compulsory essays whilst the other, has multiple choice and extended matching questions. Both papers are three hours in length. You will be required to pass the part one exam before being able to apply for the part two.
The part two exam is spread over three days. Day one specifically examines your morphology and diagnostic skills with two papers. The first is made up of 12 quick-fire short cases and the second three more lengthy long cases. During day two, you were given papers on transfusion and coagulation. The final day concludes with an oral exam or Viva. There are eight topic areas to be answered in 60 minutes, with two 30 minutes oral exams with two pairs of examiners.
Now you know how these exams work. Let's get the firsthand advice of our trainees on how they passed.
A good way, I prepared was forming a study group and actually this goes for part two as well. And I think that has a number of benefits. Firstly, it makes it a bit more sociable. Sometimes when you're feeling a bit low or you don't want to revise having someone else or a group of people there who have revised can push you along a little bit and make you feel like it's a communal effort. And I think what can happen is conversations and discussions about cases you've experienced often help you remember. So for example, a colleague discussing a case with me I tend to remember that better than perhaps just reading a guideline or reading a textbook. So I think certainly forming a study group is one of my huge recommendations for both part one and part two.
I'd say unfortunately the cliche for a lot of these exams is reading the BCSH guidelines. And I'd certainly say that's of benefit as well. Although sometimes it can be a little bit dry and long but certainly that forms a core curriculum for what you should have to learn. Textbooks can be helpful and for me it helped me structure my thinking and make sure I didn't miss any points but you know, after a while or reading a lot of paragraphs you find that a lot of the information or at least for me it didn't necessarily stick. Courses can be useful for part one, and there are a number of courses around the country that help. And then I'd certainly say the last bit of advice would be to do practise questions. There are various websites available including Blood Academy but certainly some books are available and if you can look at previous essays and all the FRCPath has some sample essays. Looking at essays and MCQs can be really helpful. And if you've got some nice colleagues and consultant colleagues, who'd be willing to mark your essays, certainly I'd recommend doing a few of those essays under timed conditions. It's not very nice and it feels a bit artificial doing it but I'd find that, you know, that's really helpful and getting some feedback as well. Most consultant colleagues are kind and helpful and will give you good feedback on your essays. And you know, a lot of us, I think have not necessarily written essays for you know, about 10 years, perhaps. So getting into the practise and routine of writing essays is incredibly helpful.
Okay, so for part one or I think to say for both of them part one and part two. I started revising for both of them probably about three months before the actual exam. And I did do like a revision timetable to set out what I wanted to cover and kind of tried to timetable in for the weekends what to do because there's a lot to get through and I think you do kind of need a bit of a schedule of how you're going to cover everything. And it's also quite important to know the format of the exams which I had no idea about before actually starting. So for part one, you've got your four essay questions. So you do need to have quite detailed knowledge about the different topics either coagulation, transfusion, Haem-onc general haem because if one of those comes up as one of the essays you do kind of need quite detailed knowledge about that. And then the second part of the exam is multiple choice questions and EMQ's so, and you can sort of revise for those I think probably quite differently.
So how did I prepare for second part one? I think I focused on a lot of it around looking at the BSH guidelines, which is very, very dull. It's not the most exciting, not most exciting revision but particularly looking at the more recent guidelines because those are sort of things that can definitely come up as an essay question. So it is good to know them quite well. But yeah, as I said, particularly the more recent ones or some of the haem onc ones. So I think I basically did go through pretty much the entire backlog of guidelines on the website. I mean, you don't need to read page to page all of them but like they all have summary points and recommendations, I think, yeah, I went through pretty much all of those. And so that's kind of the basis for both the essay questions and the EMQ's and the MCQ's but then also other websites as well that you can get sort of practise questions on. So, and there's also books as well. So I think I used like the EMQ and MCQ practise. There's the Barbara Bain I can't remember what's it called now, I should probably have gotten that, but there's a Barbara Bain handheld pocket book that has got lots of questions in and then there's the Blood Academy website that does have a really good question base. And again there's another one that I think I used that I also cannot remember the name of, but if you look, there are some online that have got lots of question banks. I'm trying to think of other websites that were very useful. I think Hemebase does have a good summary of pretty much all the best BSH guidelines So if you don't want to read through all of them I think that does summarise all of the guidelines on there, but yeah, I did go through all of the guidelines.
I think in terms of other, other preparation, So I think one of the big things on the day everyone kept saying is timing. So you need ummm, so I practise doing mock essay questions and consultants are actually very willing to, genuinely very willing to help either to make up questions or to find a past questions that you can do at home to time and then when this initially not necessarily to time but by the end if you can practise doing them to time obviously without any notes and then getting someone to sort of read and mark them, that was really good. And even if it's not necessarily to get a proper mark just someone to say that this is what, you know, you're on the right track. Otherwise you could sort of go into the exam without really knowing quite how, quite how to structure the essay or what you're meant to be doing. So get definitely doing practise practise essays is very good. And as I said before, I think you need to have quite good background knowledge for doing those essay questions. Hence having to look at all the guidelines. And I think certainly when I started prepping for part one you kind of have the feeling that you don't know anything because you might be doing it fairly early on. I think I did it fairly early on because I was ST4. So you might actually feel when you start that you don't really know actually you don't really know anything and it can be quite daunting then to be trying to do practise questions when you think you just don't know anything but by the end of the revision, it will come. And then you will actually feel like you've learned quite a lot, which was quite nice about doing part one that then you did actually feel that you've definitely learned and now you actually understand some stuff whereas before you probably didn't really.
I think the only other thing to say about my own preparation for part one was the, I think I did most of it just by myself. I mean, I know some people might find you work really well as part of the group and you certainly could do it as group revision but equally it's the sort of exam that you can just do kind of by yourself and sit and revision timetable and just kind of get on with it yourself, I think. So I guess everyone's different.
Part two, I was really fortunate to have a study buddy. So we would just with zoom would go through so coagulation and transfusion really and then morphology, it was our little group that would meet up on the weekends. The thing with morphology and when I was quite fortunate with our group but I know with previous groups, you can learn bad habits because you don't have someone overlooking you. So you just need someone who thinks, so well this is how you did morphology and everyone else learns. So, I don't know how you find it but there would be groups where all of them would pass or all of them would fail. And you wonder why that's the case. So I kind of feel that with mythology, if you could do it with a consultant or someone who is very good then they can actually teach you how to write your answers. Actually there was not many marks for diagnosis It was actually describing and there were moments where I'm like, what are they asking me, you know. And I think when you're doing it as a group, all you think about is getting the diagnosis but actually that's not the marks you get. And also the time, I just felt rushed, so try and get through the slides. And you don't realise that five of the slides are going to be taken away from you. And you're never gonna look at it again. So you have to get over yourself and go right, okay, well, whatever I wrote for those answers I need to put it straight in the next five slides. And the stamina to go through the second day and the third day because again, I don't how the others felt but I thought morphology was the toughest. And at the end of that day I just thought I'm gonna give up, why should I bother? I was like, okay, it's fine. I'll just keep going I'm so glad because that's actually my marks I actually got better and better which is why I think I passed. I think if I had the same feeling of like, Oh, I'm gonna give up, I don't think I would've passed. It's a very different exam to anything that you've ever done in medicine. But partly because of the way it's set up in terms of morphology. I'd never done an exam that involved a microscope before in terms of practising for vivas I'd never really done vivas before. And again, it was using the different resources. So Blood Academy again was very good in terms of practising the SAQ's and also having a slide bank So I could look at a lot of the slides. For known malignancies and help consolidate my knowledge. Obviously we had sessions as a group online where we went through cases of morphology and talked around them which was really helpful and consultants again in the hospital did five and practise with me quite a lot of coag because, you know, coag can be difficult but when you get good teaching actually becomes quite straightforward. But I think a lot of it is rather than necessarily bookwork It's talking to people, it's practising, looking at HPLC plots where you can and getting actively involved in discussions about diagnostics such as flow cytometry. So it really is a bit of a combination of things that you have to do as well as reading the up-to-date guidelines and any new research coming out.
Because we were doing it around the time of the pandemic, we used zoom a lot to have discussions with each other and we did that particularly in the last couple of weeks before the exam. We'd speak most days and talk through different topics. So actually, you know, despite being on my own in Cardiff in Wales during the exam, I could still work with someone else and by using technology.
I suggest for part two So forming study groups is incredibly helpful. A lot of the resources that I mentioned in terms of Blood Academy, Haembase is an excellent website which I used particularly for reading short notes, BSH guidelines and textbooks. So one book it's quite big but it's practically based is the ASH Educational textbook which is released every few years and is part of the educational programme. And that's quite useful. There are certainly some excellent chapters in there and it's relatively up to date every few years. So I'd certainly recommend that. And then, I mean, again, it's a bit of a cliche but certainly revising for it felt a little bit like it's about a summation of your training over many years and that particularly is true for the morphology. So the other tip that I'd recommend is spending some time, and again lots of people will tell you this, spending some time in the laboratory looking at blood films. And of course, a lot of the blood films that you might see in the exam are perhaps not ones you'll ever see when you're training. But as long as you've got a systematic approach to reporting cases which you'll build up throughout your training and presenting to consultant colleagues and writing blood film reports, bone marrow reports, trephine reports, lymph node reports and that will stand you in a good position when it comes to the exam.
If you have got access to quality assurance exercises that your local hospital does. So certainly in London, we would benefit from and the area that I trained in it from NEQAS. and the hospital that I worked in kept NEQAS slides from previous years including questions and answers. Those slides include some of the common things and the uncommon things that you don't necessarily see in clinical practice do come up in the examination and are incredibly helpful. And in particular for some of the other laboratory techniques apart from blood films, I remember spending some time with the coagulation scientists in my local hospital and that was very helpful at least in essence, to visualise the coagulation assays that are being performed. And whilst practical haemostasis is a mainstay for a lot of our training is and has an excellent website for both part one and part two. Certainly added a bit of life to that resource. And as part of the study group we formed a virtual microscopy study group and that was incredibly helpful as well partly due to COVID meant that we couldn't necessarily study in close groups but finding ways to get around not being able to study together. And, you know, hopefully virtual microscopy will become a mainstay of most of our teaching. And then the final thing that I remembered was podcasts. So it was something that I discovered relatively recently and particularly when I'm commuting to work. Listening to a podcast normally between half an hour and an hour incredibly helpful. Again, it gets you into a feel of the viva, you know, talking about clinical scenarios, questions and they were very helpful. So for example, the bolus podcast, which is, I think run out of Birmingham I think and there's a UCH one as well. Excellent resources and recommend them.
Both parts I actually, again get some study buddies and I had a few. And what I find useful is, I mean, in some I was lucky when I was doing the exam that there were a few of us from the same rotation. But for my part one, I actually got to know trainees from different deaneries in the three week intermediate transfusion course. And actually we stayed an hour after every day of teaching to discuss a few topics. And in three weeks we actually have 15 hours of revision and I found that was really useful. And it was with a trainee whom I've never met and only met for the first time in the transfusion course So I think my advice is do not be afraid to speak to other trainees, they might have tips they might be able to study with you especially if you haven't got anyone else to study together. Do not miss the NHSBT transfusion courses. They are absolutely vital for preparing for both parts. And specifically for part two, I suppose we should identify the microscope that you want to bring to the exam and bring it home or at least get familiarise and learn how to troubleshoot the microscope should there be any problem. I was lucky when during my exam that the college provided the microscope and it was really good. And if you are being offered the microscope from the college, I think it is reasonable to take up that offer. It's really, really good microscope quality. And I had no issue with that.
I think consultants are our good friends so always use them. They really help tremendously not just preparing questions marking essay for part one but I had many good sessions especially in viva with my consultant. And as for part two, we had discussions about lab management and how do we manage NEQAS and things like that which we don't really learn from our day-to-day unless we actively approach the consultants. And I think at the end of the day on the exam day, just know that you have tried your best and preparing for the exam. Don't put yourself down, do not dismiss the effort that you've put in. Be calm and you'll be fine. And that's my message for all.
I spoke to one of my friends recently who'll be doing an exam in the next year. And I said, really I just think you have to commit to doing it. You have to decide that you're gonna do it and you really have to throw yourself into it. You have to willing to go and find people to do actual teaching with you. You have to be willing to go to the lab and you have to be willing to sit down and look at lots of morphology slide after slide after slide. And I think if you commit to it, you'll be okay. But if you sort of do it quite half-heartedly that's when you're gonna fail. So you really have to commit to the idea of doing it and then just throw yourself into it. And I think too, you know, it can be quite enjoyable because you really do feel like you're at the height of your haematology knowledge. So it doesn't have to be a massive or stressful thing but if you're not committed to it then I think that's where you'll struggle. So I think you really have to decide you're gonna do it and really go for it.
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