Anybody here who has given both USMLE and PLAB? Need some guidance. Thanks in advance!
I did both exams and these are my views;
- Regardless of any exams, efficient preparation is mandatory. USMLE was and is a hard exam and therefore I took a year whilst in medical school to prepare for it. It covers literally everything in medicine. Biochemistry to pharmacology to pathology to biostatistics. After graduation, I took 3 weeks to prepare for my PLAB 1 because my USMLE knowledge is fairly fresh.
- NICE guidelines is a MUST to know in the UK. I paid attention to NICE guidelines to almost all questions in Plabable. As for ethics, GMC online described it well in its website.
- I didn’t follow the conventional methods where you have to repeat few cycles of completing 1700 & Plabable. To me, understand the concepts is more important than memorising.
- please know the concept of what are abnormal lab values. This is important as it helped me to skim read them and how to correlate the readings with the scenarios given in a short time. I picked this skill from my USMLE practice. Also, speed reading because time is gold. This comes with loads of practice.
- never take PLAB 1 lightly because the trend is setting towards UKMLE which I predict it may mimic USMLE ( I could be wrong)
- PLAB 1, like any other medical exam, is a medical exam itself. Don’t rely on whether or not questions will be repeated from past exams or question banks. Prepare yourself well and you’ll pass