Attention Doctors from Pakistan!!
Anyone who wants to join London Clinical courses in Pakistan for Plab 2 prepration, ask them to give u a list of passing Candidates in their June and December batches. Only people who passed were from January 2018 batch.
We all know how Plab 2 has evolved after August , with new stations added and GMC being harder on the candidates.
PLAB 2 has become much tougher and hardly any candidates from LCC have passed. As per my knowledge, only 4 to 5 candidates
have passes in the past 3 batches. Which brings their pass ratio to about less than 30% as compared to the academies in UK with much higher pass rates.
I attended the course with very high hopes, considering the fact that I will be taught by a senior NHS consultant who has been teaching Plab 2 and MRCEM candidates for many years and also the fact that the teacher is so confident that he offers a money back guarantee with no terms and conditions in case you fail. I also considered financial benefits i would get by cutting down my stay in UK, but alas it was the worst decision I made. I was also intimidated by the claim of 100% success rate, which proved to be utterly wrong
We were provided course material beforehand that was intellectual property of LCC and we were not allowed to share it and we were asked to go thru the material beforehand which I did. We were promised lot of practice and around 200 to 250 cases to be done during the case but that wasn’t the case. 5 days teaching was simply not enough. On top of that, we were continuously cautioned against practising with people from any other academy and repeatedly re assured that whatever way we have been taught, no other academy teaches and if we stick to this approach we will pass. We were shown slides of notes from other academies pointing out their mistakes and told to follow whatever was told to us by our teacher since he is the only teacher who works in NHS and knows things in and out. I really wish the time taken to tear down others was spent to teach us better.
Sadly, we all fell into this euphoria and even wrote very nice comments on LCC’s page. Hence, I find it extremely important to share the other point of view as well.
There are many things that the management needs to work on.
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Class size is small ( ours was about 12 students) and you won’t get anyone after the course to practise with you and you are forbidden to practice with any academy. Those who attend UK academies are their full time and study after the course with full dedication. Since the class size is bigger and most people take the course a couple of months before their exams, you will find many people to practice with you full time.
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The teacher doesn’t reply or guide after the course. Only replies when and if convenient for him, saying he is a full time consultant and busy with other stuff as well. I would rather prefer a full time teacher who is there for me when I need.
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Doesn’t teach new stations despite insisting. After much insistance, we were shared some scripts from other academies including Samson, Swammy and Aspire. We were continuously told that no matter what station you get you have to follow the approach and you will pass. This doesn’t work all the time. People from other academies come much prepared. You have to perform in 8 mins and it’s really tough to think and perform about something new in exam situation.
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The management claims for a fee refund or repeat of course in case u fail which no one received so far. We were given lame excuses like, you failed by only 2 to 3 stations, you failed cuz you didn’t practise very well, you failed cuz you didn’t perform well in the exam, you were out of clinical practice, etc etc. In short anyone who fails from LCC fails because of their own incompetence and the rare ones who passed were due to to the true guidance by LCC.
Those who wanted to repeat the course after failure were also discouraged until they asked for a fee refund .
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There is no scope of practising on mannequins after the course. Anyone who is not working in UK clinical settings must know and practise their protocols again and again specially before the exam. LCC candidates struggle begging other academies to let them in for practice or mocks.
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The mocks taken were very good but more like an interaction session. The visiting faculty were no doubt very learned and dedicated but it was definitely something like a proper mock that other academies offer.
So, these were my few unbiased observations against the ethical guideline that GMC expects their doctors to follow. I would really request the management to be honest to candidates. For you it might be easy money from the course but for us, it’s a waste of time, energy, money and emotions. It’s not easy to sit for any exam again. It costs a lot not only financially but emotionally as well.