Good Night, It’s Time To End The Show

After a lot of consideration, I’ve decided to pull the plug on the site. Sadly, I just don’t have the time to update it anymore. Here’s hoping that whatever I have is sufficient to get you through your exams and survive the harsh several years of the Russian education system that is awaiting you.

It has been a great few years and I definitely enjoyed doing it but there are other aspects of my life that I must focus on now. As the saying goes, “All good things must come to an end.”

Photo by: http://www.flickr.com/photos/slimjim/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Hospital Therapy Exam

I just had my Hos. Therapy exam today. Everything went fairly well. The exam starts at 9-ish and is held at the 15th City Hospital, main building – in the area just in front of the conference hall.

For this exam, you will need to answer two situational questions – provide the diagnosis, classification, investigation and treatment. You can find the questions here. There are 40 variants all together. Each variant has 3 questions but you only need to answer two (there will only be 2 questions on your ticket during the exam). The every third question is either a professional disease or an infectious disease. These situational questions will be re-used in 6th year during the state exam. Packed together with the situational question is a list of all relevant questions only. Depending on the teacher who you are allocated to, it may or may not be difficult. Several did fail. And oh, it’s viva voce.

For each disease, you will need to know the medical treatment, groups of drugs and examples. Doses are not required.

After you have answered the 2 questions, you will be given an ECG which you will need to decipher and state the abnormalities.

Now, here’s the fun part. It is impossible to cheat in this exam. Impossible. The tables are arranged in the middle of the hall. One person to each table, surrounded by teachers on all sides, plus the additional interns walking around keeping an eye out.

Therapy is not a very difficult subject to study. I finished reading both of the Internal Diseases books in 2 days. If I can do it, anyone can.

Happy studying!

ENT Exam

ENT or Laryngootorhinology in Russian is a pretty difficult subject to go through. For 2 weeks, you will learn the methods of examining a patient, the diseases and treatment. And oh, don’t forget lectures.

The ENT department is pretty strict. If you miss a class, you will have to otrabotka in the Priemnoyeh Otdeleniyeh (Consultation) for 5 hours to get a slip to prove that you’ve done it.

Exam, on the other hand, is pretty straightforward. It consists of 2 questions regarding any disease, one situational question and one recipe. I’ll tell you what you need to know to pass.

1. Study. If you can’t get past the oral part, you won’t pass. The department is very strict and it’s a lottery, basically. If you get the Head of the Department, I wish you all the best.
2. Know the recipes, how to write and what it’s for. If you get the HOD Professor, he might ask you to write an additional recipe in front of him. If not, you may refer to notes when preparing your answers.
3. Practice your examination with your friends. You have to pass the practical section before proceeding. In each examination of the ear, nose and throat, you will need to know what structures you can see, respectively.

As I said, the cycle is 2 weeks and the exam is directly after the cycle ends. Or, you may choose to do it on the exam day.

Happy studying!

Neurology Exam

Hi 4th years,

I’ve found something that may come in handy to you during your exam. Check it out: Neuro Exam

All the best!

Heart Sounds MP3

How good are you at distinguishing heart sounds? Have you even any idea what I’m talking about? This collection of MP3s is very useful for second and third year students, great exposure for first years and an excellent refreshers’ course for the rest.

Grab it here.

Clinical Skills Videos

Admittedly, clinical skills of Russian grads are not entirely on par with medical students around the world. It’s time we did something about it and brushed up on the skills that we need to use everyday.

Here are a few videos on clinical examination, divided into systems. Then following that, a few videos on taking blood, introducing an IV cannula and other clinical procedures.

The Cardiovascular System
The Respiratory System
The GI System
The Cranial Nerves
Neurological Examination of the Upper Limbs
Neurological Examination of the Lower Limbs
Hands and Wrists
The Shoulders
The Knees
The Ankles and Feet

Phlebotomy (Taking blood)
Introducing an IV cannula
Arterial Blood Gas
Catheterisation – Male and Female

Basics of First Aid

Surgical Videos

It’s been a busy week for me. I’ve sourced the internet for some interesting, education videos. I finally found some and would like to share them with you. It’ll definitely come in handy for you guys to update yourselves on your clinical skills and will most likely teach you something you didn’t know that you didn’t know.

Basic Surgical Skills 26MB – A collection of 12 videos teaching you how to properly hold a forceps, how to hold a needle, how to tie surgical knots, instrument ties and how to perform simple surgical sutures.

Surgery Videos 121MB – A collection of videos expanding on how to tie surgical knots (two-handed, one-handed, right hand predominant), scrubbing and gowning.

Forensic Medicine

Hi guys,

A few words about Forensic Medicine in Russia. Firstly, it is a totally obsolete subject in the rest of the world. Only medical schools in Russia teach it. So in other words, it is an absolute waste of time. You’re better off watching CSI (Vegas, not the other spinoff crap).

Secondly, they have tests everyday after the first few days of lecture. So, be prepared. You will have to buy a set of books which contain the questions and answers to the daily tests (MCQs, True/False questions). All of which you will have to know to pass the tests. Most of the time, they only question you on the cases — they give you a situational question for which you will have to write the diagnosis and explanation (examples in the Q&A book). If the diagnosis is right, then they will proceed to ask you a few other questions related or unrelated to your diagnosis; then a few questions on the preserved parts (preparations).

If you fail/miss a test, you will have to repeat it on Wednesday the following week at 3pm, which is a hassle. Most of us pass with a 3 or 4 and that’s enough.

On the first day, you will have to attend a post-mortem session. That is compulsory. If you are absent, you will have to attend a Saturday post-mortem at 8.30am and write a referat on the early and late changes to the cadaver. Trust me, go for the first day.

If you pass all your tests, you will be given a mark and supposedly passed your exam on Forensic Medicine. They will write the exam mark in your Credit Book on the day of the exam.

PS I hate Russia and it’s backwards, time-wasting methods and otrabotkas.

New Books Rearranged

Hi guys,

I’ve recently managed to get my hands on a lot of medical books in electronic form. I’ve posted up some previously but I’ll post them up again, this time arranged in the order of the year you’ll be needing them.

1st year

• Pocket atlas of human anatomy
• Gray’s anatomy
• A guide to dissection of the human body

2nd year

• Cases on Microbiology
• Talley Clinical Examination
• Pulmonary Physiology
• Principles of clinical pharmacology
• McLeod clinical examination
• Harper’s biochemistry
• Guyton medical physiology
• CVS physiology concepts

3rd year

• Textbook of surgery
• Surgical Anatomy
• Robbins Pathologic Basis of Diseases
• Oxford handbook of clinical medicine
• Manual of Surgery
• Learning surgery
• Surgery Q&A
• Internal medicine facts
• Harrison’s
• ECG made easy
• ABCs of clinical ECG
• ebc pathphys

4th & 5th year

• Williams Obstetrics
• Upper GI Surgery
• The pregnancy book
• Pulmonary Therapy secrets
• Psychologist book of personality tests
• Oxford handbook of respiratory and pulmonary medicine
• Oxford handbook of psychiatry
• Oxford handbook of clinical diagnosis
• O&G secrets
• O&G at a glance
• Obstetrics by 10 teachers
• Neurology and neurosurgery illustrated
• How to examine the nervous system
• Essential neurology
• Cranial nerves functional anatomy
• Manual of nephrology
• Paediatrics Illustrated
• OBGYN lecture notes
• Essential OBGYN
• Paediatrics diagnostic exams
• Opthalmology at a glance
• Colour atlas of Ophthalmology
• Handbook of psychiatric drugs
• Handbook of fractures
• Current essential orthopedics
• GI and liver secrets
• ENT secrets
• Color Atlas of ENT Diagnosis (New)
• Dermatology illustrated
• Dermatology notes
• Poisoning and Drug Overdose (Toxicology) — NEW

Books and DivShare

Hi guys,

Here are some rantings of DivShare again. Yes. My love-hate relationship with DivShare. Anyways, short story is: I used my up 10GB download quota for February so all of my links are dead until 25th of Feb. Yep.

The good news is I have more books to share but the links will be dead until my download refreshes. I’m thinking of going Pro on DivShare to revive my links again but DivShare only accepts eCheques from Paypal so whoopee. eCheques take around a week to clear and by then it will be almost half the month gone. Pretty soon after that, my download quota should have refreshed. What’s the point?