Welcome to the Learning Centre! This section is produced after much deliberation and study of process of PACES Examination right from how one should prepare for it, how to perform with calmness and confidence and showing nothing but competency and slickness in each and every step on the day of examination.
It is of utmost importance that the contents are not skimmed through but practiced in such a way that each step comes naturally without having to think about the next step.
To make most out of the course content it is recommended that you follow what is mentioned and once you have had a feel of it you can practice according to your needs:
1. Clinical stations: in order to develop a slick and efficient examination routine, read the examination sequence mentioned for each case or system and do mental rehearsal of the steps involved right from inspection to how you would present the case till you feel you have perfected it. Practice at least 4-5 times in a row on a friend, colleague or partner. Now you can confidently go and examine patients. Every once in a while keep on doing this exercise of mental rehearsal and examination on a person till you feel you can do it without any second thought.
2. Ethics & Communication: one needs to understand the underlying principles to be able to deal with any ethical dilemma. It is important to know some key topics e.g. mental capacity, consent, issues around confidentiality etc. which are discussed in this section. After you have read and understood the principles, you can start practising various scenarios with fellow candidates and peers.
3. History taking: believe it or not, you will be expected by the examiners to reach a diagnosis at the end of this session and that is for a reason. Your history should be so focussed that you should be able to get the relevant bits from the patient and this can happen if you have at least 4-5 differential diagnoses for each major symptom of any given system and know the key aspects of each condition. It does not mean that you can’t pass if you can’t give a diagnosis but the chances are increased significantly if you can do so. There is a list of major symptoms from each system in this section.
4. Integrated Clinical Assessment (ICS) or Station 5: the approach to a patient should be a holistic one and this station has been developed keeping that in mind and the way a candidate approaches a patient in a busy clinic or on an acute take. The candidates are expected to take a brief history, do a focussed examination and address and communicating with patient to tell about management plan and address any issues that they may be having. At the end you will be facing examiners’ questions. Though there is no dedicated section on ICS in this website but if you have mastered examination and have read the theory part of the scenarios given, the commonly presented cases in examination should not be difficult for you.