Down Under...

As well as roaring past the 2500 hits mark, the blog has been recommended on an Australian website: Anaesthesiacases

They write: "James Shorthouse’s Blogspot!! This is great reading: the keeping of a diary in the approach to the final FRCA exam. Good for the final exam candidate but also for the consultant browsing on a range of clinical topics". I'm thrilled to have received some international recognition!!

Back to the job in hand: having just finished a stupendous ten day stretch in ICU, I've been trying to catch up with some revision. I've just filled out my application form for the exam, together with a(nother) cheque for £690. Remember that the closing date is September 9th.

I've been through and repeated the SAQ paper I did in April this year, specifically concentrating on questions which were done badly by candidates i.e. air embolism, paediatric fluid resuscitation, and neuromuscular blockade reversal. All questions were done to a strict 10-11 minute time-limit, and I reviewed my answers and annotated them for further reference.

I have also completed the 270 MCQs in the new RCOA guide to the Final FRCA, in 3 batches of 90. Pleasingly, I managed to score 77%, 78%, and 79% respectively (aiming for 80% passmark). Bear in mind, some of these questions I've done before. On a negative turn of events, I attempted some Q-Base 5 questions on the computer. Firstly, I think in future I will do these Q-Base MCQs on paper as the CD-ROM only do negative marking. Secondly, they are in batches of 60, so you get out of sync with the papers - I believe we need to be practicing 90 MCQs at a time. Thirdly (& less importantly), there's something I really don't like about Q-Base questions i.e. they're hard and I only got 36% this time round! Just like last time, I always end up swearing at the computer during Q-Base!!!