Good set of results today

Good set of results today. Learnt a lot from the senior members of this group and others like it, so I thought I’d share my advice or path and if it helps someone then I’d be happy. Sorry for the long post.

Firstly, some background on myself as I think we are all different and this may play a role in how long you choose to prepare for PLAB 1… I studied in China, and did my pre-graduate internship at a very big, well resourced hospital in Wuhan where I gained great experience. I would advise all members planning on taking the PLAB to study hard at medical school and focus on the theory there. Having a key understanding of basic medical sciences and clinical theory is of the utmost importance and makes your PLAB 1 journey much easier. Try and be as consistent as possible across all clinical domains when studying and pay particular attention to clinical practice. Diagnosis, investigation and management were a big part of the exam.

I passed my IELTS and graduated from Medical School in June 2019 and returned to my country in July 2019. I then completed numerous emergency based practical courses including ACLS, PALS, ANLS, APLS, AMLS and AHA ECG & Pharms…I had completed these courses by the end of August 2019. I’d say the AMLS, APLS and ECG courses were most beneficial and applicable to the UK system and my PLAB preparation. I started my PLAB 1 prep in early September by reviewing the key chapters of SAMPSON notes and their questions during the day and answered around 50 questions on PLABABLE, related to the day’s chapter, that night. Please remember I was free all day although in reality I’d only spend 3-4 hours on the theory and around another 1.5 hours on questions at night. By doing this I got through most of SAMPSON notes and about 60% of PLABABLE by early October. For some high yield internal medicine chapters I also reviewed my Pathoma book from Med School and found this to be helpful in refreshing my knowledge of many key conditions. This is not a necessity but just helpful.

I then did the Dr. Swamy 21-day PLAB 1 preparation course and continued with my PLABABLE questions at night. These days were really draining and tiring. I decided I needed more questions so I registered for BMJ OnExamination and I-medics, simply to give my brain a different style of questioning. These 2 question banks were a little more difficult than PLABABLE and asked questions that were more specific and required deeper understanding. I probably only did about 25% of the questions in these 2 question banks. They were beneficial for me but not a necessity. I also choose some specific subject-wise questions from the 1700 group of questions, though in reality a lot of them were already covered in other question banks and I found them a little easy and not of much value.

After completing the Dr. Swamy course, I had also completed the entire PLABABLE question bank and had 10 days to go to my exam. I then did 4 PLABABLE Mocks scoring mid to high 80’s in all of them. I also did 3 Dr. Swamy mocks scoring around 80% in them. I spent the rest of the time reviewing key theoretical points on the high yield topics that the lecturers at Swamy mentioned while trying to do a few questions a day from the various question banks just to stay fresh and on top of things. If I was in any doubt I consulted NICE Guidelines and OHCM.

The last two days before the exam I reviewed the notes from PLAB1Keys. These are great for cramming and are direct and to the point. I should probably have done these at least once right in the beginning because they give you all the major high yield stuff. I got through the entire PLAB1Keys notes in 2.5 days. And then went and did my exam. I walked out feeling confident but knowing there were a few questions that I naturally wasn’t sure off. All in all I think it was a fair paper with questions very similar in style to PLABABLE (In my opinion).

I know I used many resources, especially Q-banks which is probably not necessary. The only Q-bank I finished was PLABABLE and only did it once together with the 4 mocks based on those questions. Its very easy to get lost and overwhelmed using many resources. So be careful, don’t waste time trying to do everything. Just get a feel for a few different question types and then move on.

In Summary:

Total Prep Time - 1 September 2019 to 7 November 2019

Resources I highly recommend are: First and foremost work hard at medical school then SAMPSON notes or Dr. Swamy for the theoretical basis of your preparation (You don’t need both), PLABABLE and Plab1Keys.

Additional suggested resources: I-medics and BMJ OnExamination question banks (Simply for different question types)

Extra references when there was uncertainty: NICE and OHCM

Hope this helps. Well done to everyone else that passed and those who didn’t just keep working hard and don’t give up.

See you all for PLAB 2 in 2020