Attended the PLAB 2 course at London Clinical Course, and it was truly amazing!!!
Day 1: Revolved around data gathering and explaining management in medicine, surgery and paediatric scenarios. Dr. Ash proved himself to be a superb teacher and explained key errors candidates make during exam. He explained essence of exam is to communicate with patient naturally. Dr. Waqar Malik, a GP in NHS, added further more to our communication skills.
Day 2: Was about BLS, ATLS etc. Unfortunately I couldn’t attend it for some unforeseen family reasons. Here I must acknowledge humanitarian nature of Dr. Ash, who proposed that I could make up for this class with upcoming December batch.
Day 3: Mannequins’ day.
Before attending the course my biggest apprehension was how will we get ample time to practice on mannequins in a 7 day course. But believe me we had more than sufficient time to have hands on mannequins procedures.
Day 4: Communication and Counselling.
Divided into two sessions. Morning session conducted by Dr. Ash himself and evening by a brilliant NHS GP, Dr. Waqar.
Day 5: Breaking Bad News, Telephonic conversation and Conflicts.
Another vibrant session. We were provided a framework, vital clues and pitfalls of these situations.
Day 6 and 7 were dedicated to Mocks. Practiced more than 40 stations. Dr. Nadeem Tehami, a Gastroenterology Consultant at NHS and PACES examiner, assessed us individually and provided constructive feedback. He provided us great insight into what is expected of us at PLAB exam and boosted our moral to another level.
Evening mocks session was taken over by Dr. Sanam Khawaja, a PACES trainer here in Pakistan, and gave input on our individual lackings.
Final mocks on Day 7 were conducted by Dr. Ash himself.
Lastly in an informal session, the so called new stations were cracked.
The course is very well structured, and we have been provided course material well ahead. Its highly recommended that anyone attending the course must go through it thoroughly, not because you need to memorize some script, but to have background skills to get them polished here.
Dr. Ash is a marvellous teacher, he made everything simple and easy to grasp. The venue is awesome and we are served delicious lunch and two tea breaks everyday.
I will recommend this course to all Pakistani doctors who are planning to appear in PLAB 2