Accept that you will need to sacrifice a lot of free time in preparation for the Fellowship Clinical Examination (OSCE) and give it 100 per cent.
That’s the advice of ACEM trainee Dr Amy McAllister who was awarded the Buchanan Prize for her performance in the 2018.2 OSCE.
The Buchanan Prize is awarded to the candidate achieving the highest score in the OSCE.
“Try to stay positive during the study process – getting through the exam is definitely worth it. Find out where your weaknesses lie early and practise stations focussing on those, with someone who is familiar with the new exam and will give honest feedback,” Dr McAllister said.
“Try to do as many mock exams as possible as they will prepare you for the pace of the exam and help you deal with your nerves so that you are not experiencing them for the first time on the morning of the real thing.”
Approaching the day of the exam, Dr McAllister resorted to a number of techniques.
“The night before I tried as best as I could to relax and get a good sleep,” she said. [On the day] I tried to use the anxiety in the minutes leading up to the first station to my advantage – there is a lot to get through in seven minutes and adrenaline can be your friend.
“Day 2 was a lot easier as you knew what to expect and the finish line was so close, which really helped with my confidence.”
Continuous preparation
Dr McAllister started to practise for the OSCE as soon as she found out she had passed the written exam, “which has its pros and cons”. “You need to be in the right head space to give it that final push which at times was exhausting, but I had the advantage of having the knowledge gained in my written revision fresh in my mind which I feel helped – I just needed to consolidate this by practising stations to time,” Dr McAllister said.
“I practised every scenario I could find and tried to guess what could be examined, hoping that I could cope with some surprises in the actual OSCE.”
Dr McAllister said teamwork was also a key ingredient for success.
“Practising in a small group and meeting a few times a week (and even more frequent closer to the exam) was definitely the key to passing for me – there is no way I could have done this by myself,” she said. “Everyone had their strengths and weaknesses and we all learned from each other, and it also made the experience a lot more social which helped in general with exam stress.
“Practising with those who are familiar with the examination process as well as those who have recently passed exams is invaluable, and I owe a big thankyou to my colleagues at the Royal Melbourne and the Northern hospitals for sparing me their time over the months leading up to the exam.”
Dr McAllister also attended the AFEM clinical course “which provided many pearls, and also exposure to different kinds of stations under examination conditions”.
Welcome news
When told she had won the Buchanan Prize Dr McAllister said the news took a while to sink in.
“I was in disbelief. I think I read the email about 10 times to check I wasn’t imagining it,” Dr McAllister said. “As doctors we don’t get much feedback on our interactions with patients or colleagues, so winning the prize was a really nice reminder that I was doing something right.”
How to prepare for the Fellowship Exams
ACEM provides an extensive range of online resources featuring past papers, past exam reports, and much more. These are all located on eLearning under ‘Resources for Trainees’.