Passing PLAB1 and PLAB2 on the first time!

Came to share my history with you guys and to actually be real and not pessimistic like most people here are (no, you don’t need to make people get so scared about the exams, that isn’t being realistic, it’s being pessimistic).

So, I already shared my PLAB 1 story here in which I basically studied for 4 months doing all PLABABLE questions and 21 mocks total (if I remember correctly). Plab 1, once you practice a lot with mocks (don’t be scared of them), it starts to become an instinct to answer the questions, so my advice is MOCKS. As many as you can do. My lowest mock score was 71% and my highest was 84%. Passed PLAB 1 with 144 questions, so please don’t freak out if your mocks aren’t 100%!

So, PLAB 2.

I took ARORA and I wouldn’t recommend any other one. To be honest, I think there are two types of people (none better than the other): Group A: feels better doing a consultation naturally and that leads to medical thinking and building up a diagnosis. Group B: feels better remembering a script as they’re scared the might blank.

So a few points to discuss:

a) GMC is aware there are courses that are teaching stations and not medicine, therefore they are (and they said so on my exam date) changing stations and coming up with new ones so scripted people will have a problem

b) An academy does not need to make you feel like a horrible doctor in order to teach you

c) There’s no such thing as “if you say this it’s a fail” or “if you do this it’s a fail”. That is complete bs, trust me

d) Interpersonal skills ARE important, but you can’t remember IPS as a script, trust me, it is noticeable. And how do you improve your IPS? Empathy. Literally that’s it, it’s like talking to a friend or a family member, you want them to feel comfortable and understood and unique when they’re talking to you. Make the patient feel the same way

e) I’ve seen so many people saying if you don’t take Lovan you’re not passing, and that scared the s out of me, so I decided to pay for Lovan after ARORA and, PERSONAL OPINION, I do NOT like being taught a script, I do not like feeling dumb like sometimes he will make you feel, I do not like the way he teaches things and his classes are extremely exhausting. Summing up I took day one and stopped watching because I thought it was useless. I do recommend it though if you’re a script kind of person.

f) PLAB 2 is indeed hard. Does that mean it’s impossible? Absolutely not. It is a lot easier for people who have already been working because it’s literally what we do on a daily basis: going to the hospital and not knowing what patients we’ll get and still being able to manage.

g) Do NOT compare yourself to others, PLEASE. If X is confident and you’re not, that does NOT make them better. I remember someone from my academy acting like the badass and laughing about people who didn’t do things they expected them to. This person did not pass, and the person he was laughing of did. So.

h) The key to PLAB 2 is PRACTICE. The key is feeling comfortable doing an organized consultation and getting cues like if the patient mentions something twice, it IS important, so take that cue.

So how did it go for me?

I took PLAB1 in May, and got back to my country in the beginning of June. I was 99% sure I passed PLAB1 so I already paid for ARORA and started studying for PLAB2. I did all 180 cases from MOHSOBY (idk how to write sorry) throughout June just to know what to expect from PLAB2. In July I didn’t study at all. Got my PLAB1 results on July 4th, booked my PLAB2 for the middle of September. Started actually studying in August, when I took ARORA, and I practiced EVERYDAY at least 10 cases until 7 days before my exam.

What about prescription? AZT notes are the best choice. Write all the possible prescriptions and understand properly the reasoning for answers and how and where to write every information.

What about SIM-MAN? I literally have been working in A&E for the past 2 years and I can say that I am definitely ready to get unstable patients and manage them. I still did not pass the SIM-MAN because it was my last station and I was exhausted. Besides heart failure with non-audible crackles, and no medical history, no one knew what was happening to be honest. Anyways. Practice ABCDE and that’s it. ABCDE. ABCDE. ABCDE. Don’t skip steps.

What about procedure stations? Practice as much as you can. In my country all the possible procedures are done by nurses, so I had to remember all of them. Went to the academy twice to practice all stations.

What about anxiety? You WILL get anxious, you WILL blank out. How to deal with it? Do NOT study as you wait for your exam PLEASE, that will only trigger you into thinking you know nothing just because you didn’t remember a point about something. Just chill, drink a coffee, listen to music, watch some series.

What about the exam day? Very exhausting and stressful, to be honest, but just remember, it’s nothing different from what you do on a daily basis when working.

Basically, stop reading people say the exam is impossible and the exam is so hard and all that. The exam is what you do on a daily basis, the difference is just you’ll have to do it in 8 minutes.

Which reminds me: - You will NOT get through everything in 8 minutes, trust me - Focus on data gathering and IPS - For management do the summarizing because they will see if you had more time you would have said it all - example: so we need to talk about X, Y and Z. And then you can get into details (if you have time)

P.s.: I passed 13 stations out of 15 (they excluded one from my day). 129 points.

At the end, you can do this. Trust me. And don’t let anyone make you feel like you can’t

Hope that helped a bit x