Exam Intelligence

With so many things to read I have been reviving my interest in speed reading. I’m not sure it’s working though, although a computer based test tells me my reading speed has gone from 450 to 660 words a minute.
James Shorthouse has elaborated on my list of topics that might come up, with a few suggestions about what would lend itself to being a good SAQ question.

PS: For the princely sum of £7.86 you too can improve your speed reading by buying a program from here. I bought it for a bit of work distraction, but you can plug your own text into the program to read (so you can learn while you practice!) though you do have to tweak it sometimes in Notepad or Wordpad first if you copy and paste from PDF files. And, okay, it has a bit of a…ahem…naff title (Speed Your Read), but hey…

NB: Price was correct at the time of the original blog entry

Paediatric fluid resuscitation (Article in April
Anaesthesia and an NPSA guideline last year).

Epicardial Pacing (two review articles in March and April
Anaesthesia 2007).

Conscious sedation and dental type anaesthesia (Articles
in Anaesthesia last year).

Complications of head injury (Article in Anaesthesia in
May 2007. Head injuries are quite a common question).

Well, I think that anyone doing Final FRCA ought to be looking out for at least some of the following:

Questions on anaesthesia and obesity (New AAGBI guidelines)

Local Anaesthetic Toxicity (New AAGBI guideline incorporating Intralipid (Lipidrescue))

CEMACH (new report at the end of last year) - something always comes up the following exam

Intrapartum analgesia (NICE guideline in 2007 and two articles to do with epidurals in CEACCP in last 12 months)

Malignant Hyperthermia (revised AAGBI guideline and another perennial favourite)

Thyroid surgery (CEACCP article in April 2007, perennial favourite and something about it in every SAQ book I’ve got)

Coagulation questions (At least two articles in CEACCP over the last 12 months, it’s another topic open for discussion, and there’s the whole “cell-based model” to consider. Maybe something on Novo7, and also Fondaparinux/ways of preventing DVT/VTE)

So there’s some things that I think MIGHT come up.

I have rediscovered mindmaps.
As previously mentioned I struggle with categorisation into lists, but after reading the whole thing about MECE it occurred to me that I used mindmaps when I was revising for the primary, so I’ve started using them again.
It’s actually quite a relief to realise that the reason I used them before is because to me they make sense.
If you have no idea what I’m talking about see here. If that doesn’t make sense (it’s a mind map you’re looking at), then see here or here.
Personally I think they work really well for me, and this morning has all been about Cardiac Anaesthesia, including everything to do with CPB, post-op management and complications. I couldn’t quite fit it all onto one page of A4, but I could have managed it on a sheet of A3 I think.
And that’s with my normal sized writing.

Quite apart from being a drug, CIMETIDINE is one of these mnemonics I learned at medical school, then forgot, but was prompted to remember. It is the sieve of differential diagnosis:

Congenital
Infection/inflammation
Metabolic
Endocrine
Trauma
Idiopathic
Degenerative
Iatrogenic
Neoplastic
Everything else