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!

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.

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

Psychiatry Exam… Done!

Exam is at the main Psychiatry building in the Psychiatry Hospital (obviously). Once you’re there, here’s how the exam will be.

You will get your questions (the variants are not the same as the ones found online) and then you move into a small classroom  where 10 or more of you will be seated together to prepare your answers. They don’t really keep a close watch on you and we could sort of discuss and stuff.

The thing about Psychiatry is: there are English-speaking teachers. So it’s easier to answer to them instead. If you’re planning this route then you’ll have to prepare your answers in English. I suggest you do it this way because it’s waaaaay easier. All you need to do in order to prepare is just a quick read through some Pysch textbooks regarding the disorder, their classifications, clinical manifestations and treatment. Don’t forget the treatment.

I sat down with an English-speaking teacher, blurted out everything I knew about depressive syndrome and Alzheimer’s disease. In about 5 minutes, I came out with a “5″. Those who answered to Russian-speaking teachers took slightly longer.

In essence, Psychiatry is a subject where you can study in English. Take advantage of that.

Happy studying!

OZIZ is such a waste of time, seriously

The exam is no different. It is beyond me why anyone would spend time learning about OZIZ. It’s not like we’ll use it at any time in our career. Anyways…

The exam is held in the uni at A1. There are 10 MCQs, 3 calculating questions and 6 subjective questions. I’m not too sure how many variants there. The examiners walk about to keep an eye students.

Don’t have much to say about this waste-of-time except here are most of the stuff you need – OZIZAllyouneed

Ophthalmology Exam

The Ophthalmology exam was held in the conference hall in 15th Hospital. Here’s how it goes:

You have to answer 12-15 subjective questions. Roughly an hour is allocated. Once you’re done, you hand in your paper and wait. And wait. If you’re lucky, you won’t have to answer orally. The teachers will mark your paper and then you will get your credit book back with your results. Simple.

This was all I used to prepare for the exam – Subjective questions

PS You may be aware of the “variants” for this exam. Let me crush the myth: the variants are not accurate. I got Variant N 36!

Paeds State (GOS) Exam

Yeah, we finally did our exam today. Here’s how it went.

We arrived at Morozovskaya Children’s Hospital (M. Oktyabrskaya) at around 9am and realised that it had already started. The hall is pretty small and can only accomodate roughly around 30 students at a time. The rest had to wait outside. As we went into the hall, we produced our credit books and got out seats.

First, it was the MCQ Questions. 50 questions. Take as much time as you need. Once you’re done, you call on a assistant and they will show you to an examiner who will correct your MCQs. If you pass (apparently, the passing mark is 30 correct answers), you will have to head to the stage, find your credit book and choose an envelope.

Within the envelope, there are 3 situational questions. You have 30 minutes to answer all of them and they actually state the time on your answer sheet. Complete that, then head to an examiner. It doesn’t need to be the same person as before. Be wise at this time, take a peek and try to judge the lenient ones from those who would fail you or give you a “3″.

The Dean and Vice-Dean were there today. I suppose their presences meant a lot because I don’t think anyone failed today. If this happens next year, try to go to the examiner whom the Dean is sitting with. They will be talking and won’t really focus much on you. So it’s a simple exit strategy if you’re not well prepared. On the other hand, if you are well prepared, then it doesn’t really matter who you answer to. Would it?

Oh and this was all I used to prepare for the MCQ part – Test. For the situational questions, I didn’t bother reading the “zadachis”, I revised through my notes.

Happy studying!

New Books, More To Come

As medical students here in Moscow, we all know how difficult it is to get hold of decent study material and references. I’ve managed to find some and decided to share it with everyone. Spread the word. If you have any requests, please let me know in the comments.

abc_series.rar

A.Guide.to.Dissection.of.the.Human.Body.rar

grays_anat.rar

Guyton_textbook_of_medical_physiology.rar

Harper_s_Illustrated_Biochemistry.rar

Pocket_Atlas_of_Human_Anatomy.rar

Robbins.Pathologic.Basis.of.Disease.rar

ebc_pathophysiology_2005.rar

Lissauer_-_Illustrated_Textbook_of_Paediatrics_3e__2007_.rar

McLeod_s_11th_ed.rar

Oxford_Handbook_of_Clinical_Examination___Practical_Skills_-_1st_Ed.rar

talley_Clinical_Examination2006.rar

Principles_of_Clinical_Pharmacology_.rar

dermatology.rar

harrisons17.rar

That’s all for now. Still more to come. These books are either in PDF format requiring a PDF reader. Some are in CHM format and for that you’ll need a CHM reader. GIYF.

Happy Studying