After my first post about SWAMY ONLINE COURSE

After my first post about SWAMY ONLINE COURSE, I got a lot of messages asking about the course, prep and exam itself. So here it goes, I’ll try to answer all the questions that were asked.

Swamy course is of 13 days, 9am to 7pm UK time. There are 3 breaks everyday, as mentioned in the previous post. The notes are basically scripts of the stations that have come in the past (around 250+ stations I think). They are not “notes”. People say don’t memorize scripts, I agree. But you need them to know the history, investigations, and management. And also to gauge the possible flow of conversation. I understand that being doctors we already know this but its always useful to use these scripts to revise the theory part. As far as memorizing the scripts is concerned, that of course is A BIG NO. Swamy gives scripts for all the past stations, including the new ones. Sometimes he teaches the stations, sometimes other teachers come. You are allowed to practice at the academy from morning till 8pm I think. Practice includes either learning the notes with a partner or practicing mannequins or taking a mock exam. Dr swamy is the main person driving this academy. he is amazingly hilarious, not at all insulting, veryyyy critical of errors but in a funny positive way haha. it was impossible to make him happy during role plays but that was a useful earning experience. he always said that the main thing is to excel at interpersonals. Just memorizing the phrases doesn’t help as much as always imagining yourself in the situation and then starting the station so that the words come naturally. That’s what we did.

Time required: I believe those who sit for the exam in 2 weeks after the course are exceptionally fast, brilliant and with sufficient clinical experience. To have 3 weeks post-course is a minimum, but it will put you under pressure. To have 4-5 weeks is great, you can learn, revise, revise again, and not feel unnecessary pressured. 5-6 weeks If you’re lucky enough cuz they’re super!

Mock exams: mocks are for self assessment. I had a very variable performance during all mocks but one thing that I saw improve was my confidence, which definitely helped in the main exam. The marking is not very accurate, I decided to not rely on it after the first mock because it would always be better than our performance haha. However the feedback helped us improve a great deal.

Our preparation experience: we took the online course 6 weeks before the exam, so after the course we had 4 weeks. You need to be at the academy after the course for practicing on mannequins, taking mock exams and for finding a study partner. Ideally in my opinion 10-15 days are enough for mannequins and mocks (this would cut the cost of the trip too), if you have a study partner back home. But we didn’t have this guidance so we went there for all 4 weeks after the course. We thought we would repeat a few classes, but then it felt like there was no need as memorizing the theory was more important. We spent the initial 9-10 full days finishing reading and memorizing (managements etc, NOT THE SCRIPTS WORD BY WORD) the notes together. After that we gave 2 days to visit the academy and finish all examinations. Then we took our first mock. After this we had 18ish days to the exam. This was spent in revising the stations, making our own notes (academy notes are station wise, we found it useful to study symptom wise once we got accustomed to the notes), visiting the academy to practice examinations every few days, taking the rest of the 3 mocks as per our convenience, timing ourselves on every other station, and working on our interpersonals. Interpersonals are the key, they will give you great scores overall if your are exceptionally nice, and the opposite can also happen haha. But since we are all doctors and already have basic medical knowelege, I felt that improving interpersonals every day is what eventually paid off.

I have written this to explain how we did it, I’m not saying that this is THE way to study for PLAB 2, but it worked for us by the grace of Allah. If it helps even one person to at least decide how to go about the prep, we’d be glad.

Thing is to use the academy to understand the exam, know the past papers, use mannequins, and then its all your personal effort. I don’t know how other academies work, but what we got from swamy academy felt enough after we had given the exam. anything that went wrong in the exam was already taught yet we made mistakesso cant blame the academy.

However, our performance in the exam seemed EXTREMELY inadequate after we were done with it. We really thought we would do better after so much prep. We had made blunders and missed things that used to be on our tips. I kept the fetoscope in the wrong direction, something we were specifically taught ten times NOT TO DO. We didn’t know if this was normal because no one had ever mentioned such an experience. We relied solely on prayers. But surprisingly managed to pass 15 over 17 stations (they cancelled one station) with decent scores. So after having given the exam, I feel that being calm, relaxed and composed during the exam helped more than anything else. Be nice, very very nice. Smile and greet (except if it is breaking bad). Show them you’re a natural. And even if you feel you have screwed up a case, don’t let it affect the rest of the exam. My exam started really bad, first station was a definite fail in my head, and the second station could have been better. The third one was rest station and I told myself to get a grip and then took a new start. I didn’t fail any of the stations that I thought I would, as the passing score turned out to be even lower than mine haha. The ones we failed (both husband and I failed the same), we still don’t know what we did wrong in them. So its unpredictable. So be confident. Once you are done with it, just pray. Its going to work out hopefully. Best of luck. Remember us in your prayers please