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Everybody for coming. This lovely autumnal su um Sunday evening, we um as part of my, the bleak I decided doing my MSR exam last year that there wasn't that much information out there and just how to approach the exam. Um And considering it's quite a big part of a lot of specialty applications, we just want to demystify the process and also create a community just to make sure, especially when you're doing your F two or F three is it can be quite isolating, preparing for specialty applications that you're not the only person with the same similar questions and you have other people to chat with as well. And hopefully we can provide you with some handy hints and tips advices as well. And before we begin, I'd like to kind um quickly introduce Daniel Taylor who's um from the BMA who's kindly sponsoring us today. Um So yeah, Daniel take it away. Thank you. Yeah, so I'll be super duper quick. Uh I won't take up too much time. Uh Very topical, obviously at the moment, um the BMA and everything that's going on something is tell you too much about that. Hopefully. Um So Yeah. Uh There's, there's a pretty exclusive thing that's on the screen. Um If you, if you join today and you're not already a member, you'll get your first month of membership free. All you have to do is follow that QR code, all the link that I've just put in the chart if you go onto our regular website. Uh there's no, there's no free offer. So, so yeah, it's just a bit of an exclusive for you guys, if nobody's a member at the moment and they were thinking of, of, of joining anyway. Um So yeah, so use that um the ballot, the, the recent ballot and er, came at sort of a bit of an odd time of everybody swapping around with inductions and whatnot. So I'm sure that everybody's got their, their details up to date right now, but if you don't have your details up to date, um please please go about doing that. You can scan that QR code and it'll take you to your, to your homepage. Um It's really important that we have these details correct in terms of, in terms of the strikes as, as the government. I mean, they're going to pick holes in everything that we do and we have sort of misinformation of, of where people are based. It, it just, just give them sort of reason reason to criticize what we're doing. Um So, yeah, so, so if you get a chance, I know you guys are super busy. Um Yeah, just, just to check that your details are, are up to date if you haven't already, I'm sure that you've got loads of emails from us about, about this over the, over the well over the past six months now. But yeah, with everybody changing around, it's, it's very easy to forget to, to update your details. Um So yeah, everyone knows what we are. I won't, I won't bang on about this too much. Everyone knows what, what the BMA is. It's your union. So, so there's, there's three ways of looking at it. We look after you um on individual um and um local and, and sort of national basis. So individually that's things like, you know, the contract checker um locally, uh looking after sort of a group of you at a particular trust, if there's any issues and obviously on a national level, there's, there's what's going on at the moment. Um A around, around pay on, on different levels, juniors and, and consultants. Um So yeah, just, just a few sort of questions outside of that, of, of what we usually get day to day. Um Just know that we are available. Um If you have any questions, it doesn't just have to be about um the strikes and everything we're here all year round. Um And these are just a few of the, the questions that we sort of n normally get sort of day to day. Um So Yeah. Right. I told you about the contract check a little, a little moment ago. Um, if you haven't, if you've had a new contract fairly recently and you haven't checked it, do get it sent in to us. Um, 25% of the contracts we checked last year were wrong and we checked about 8000 of them. Um, and yeah, so, so it's just even, even if it's sort of speculative and he thinks, ok, just send it in to us for better, for worse. We are the ones who negotiate those contracts. We know what should be in them and we know for a fact they should not be rolling in extra things or things shouldn't be slipped in which we, which we find sadly. Um, and yeah, a, a quarter of them, we, like I said, we checked last year were wrong. We've got a row checking to as well. That one's pretty straightforward. So that one you just go online and, and check a row, er, we actually have, have less issues with those. Um, yeah, a few more resources that, that everyone sort of, you you probably know about already. Um, but you get as part of being a, a member, um, you have BMA library. So that's basically moved online. Now. We used to have um, access to the BMA house where we had sort of li literally the physical books. Now everything's online. You can, you can access all of that instantly you just log into our website. Um And yeah, and, and you'll have everything at your fingertips. Clinical key as well if you've never used a clinical key tool. Um We have downloading that app and you'll be able to log in through your BMA, log in. It's essentially a point of, of care tool. You've probably come across it before. Um, and with getting it through, sorry, getting it through the BMA, there's, there's no paywalls and whatnot. Um We want a series of webinar as well, so there's a few on the screen there. So they're, they're available to watch any time uh throughout the year as well. So free, free for everybody. B MJ learning best way of picking up CPD points. Um And obviously we have lots of, lots of er evidence based modules on there as well. Um And, and uh obviously B MJ that will be coming through the post every, every week as it does does for me. Um If you wanted to turn it off at any point, you can just give us a ring and say, um you don't have to send these to me because you can read them online as well. Um II get them every week and, and II can't keep up to be honest though. So I understand if, if people wanna turn them off. Um I don't know if this is relevant to you guys to be honest, but I'll, I'll quickly talk about it. Just in case it is relevant to anyone watching. Um We've got a specialty explorer tool. So it's, it's an online psychometric test test. Takes about 20 minutes to complete. It'll ask all sorts of work life balance questions, then it'll break down the top 10 to, especially according to um the answer you've given. Oh, We've got a, we've got a really good wellbeing service. So that's open 24 7 to everybody Um free of charge, whether you're a member or not. Um And the unique thing about this um is that you, you have a choice of either speaking to a counselor or, or a peer, peer support doctor. So somebody um who, who's sort of been through similar situationss to yourself. So yeah, that's, that's free to everyone, like I said, regardless of whether you're in membership or not. So yeah, just a few takeaway things from me. Um Please, if you haven't sort of updated your membership recently, um Do so get your contract checked if you've had one recently, like, so 25% of the ones that we checked last year were, were incorrect and we've had thousands through obviously with the, with the summer inductions recently. So we've been checking through all of those. Usually we get it back to you within five working days. So there is a quick turnaround and obviously if you've already signed it, it's not a big deal. If it was wrong, it was wrong when when you got it, you didn't know that you signed something that you thought was correct. So, it's not set in stone just because you've signed it. Um, and yeah, like I said earlier, um, come to us whenever you need anything sort of nonclinical based, we're, we're just on the other side of the phone. Um, we have people based each trust as well. So industrial relations officers, employment advisors and we've got someone on the ground that, that knows who needs, needs to be known. Um Yeah, just if you have a uh key benefits, I won't go into everything now, but they're just on the screen. Uh Yeah, if you're not already a member, um join today using that QR code or the link in the chat and, and you'll get a month free. So, hi everyone. Um Thank you all for coming and for those who've just joined us. My name is yi, I'm currently just started core training anesthetics. Um two months ago now I'm really enjoying it and I remember this time last year, really thinking about applying and not quite sure how to approach the M SRA because it's not something that's discussed a lot. Um because it's not like at medical school where you're sitting in lectures you can discuss with your period. Has your project exams don't really know the set up and I didn't really have that much of an idea what to do. So what I ended up doing was reading lots of the blueprints that were available online and try and just ask my colleagues, especially GP trainees who were doing rotations when I was in F one F two in my local D GH to try and figure out how it was. And I thought it would be nice speaking to mind that we create a platform just so that it's a free because um I don't think medical education you should ever um Yeah, it should be accessible to everyone and also having a platform just to ask questions that I felt was probably quite silly, but I'm sure other people might have similar viewpoints as well. So that's what we're planning to cover today, which may seem basic. But speaking to um of the GP trainees this time last year when I was really stressed about what to revise and how to revise. Um they kindly reminded me is that for some of us, including me having not done the MRC S or M RCP, this is the first exam I've done since my finals. And a lot of this actually come down to exam technique and being well prepared. So obviously, we do have to put in the hours to do well in the M sra. But you actually have to be strategic and think about why we're actually doing the M SRA in the first place which I'll touch upon. And then I'll talk about my revision strategies, other revision strategies, other people find helpful at the other end. And at the end, I've invited two of my really good friends um Aza who's a core surgical trainee in London and Radica, a psych trainee in Oxford who bought at the M SRA last year and we'll just have a live Q and A for anyone who wants to ask any questions today. So, moving on purpose of the M SRA, I'm sure all of you here are probably considering or about to apply for variety of specialty training programs. And that's literally what the whole exam is designed for. Um But it varies by specialty for some which we'll see in the next slide such as for GP, the score is literally everything it summarizes exactly who your job is going to be for the next three years. Whereas for some such as co training or radiology or anesthetic surgery, it was mainly for a cut off to get an invitation to interview. So I think depending on what specialty you're applying for, you should approach this exam from different perspectives. And I'll explain why in a second and the per and the content of the exam, I'm sure everyone's probably got a brief idea now is a combination of 50% which is basically a situational judgment test, very similar to the one we did for our foundation rankings. And the other aspect is the clinical knowledge. Um This is a bit more vague because there's no standardized curriculum that is based upon, but we'll touch upon what sort of content we'd recommend revising for and um how we revise for it. So the covered specialty, it goes all the way from neurosurgery to more niche specialties such as nuclear medicine as well as the brother specialties as well. So I've emphasized involved the contribution of M SRA score for an invitation to interview and those are the contribution of the M SRA score to allocation of offers. So for instance, in core psychiatry training GP, there is no interview. This is the only exam that matters. So for these or if you're thinking of applying to these specialties, I probably recommend revising uh probably proportionally more, spending more time and getting a good score. Whereas for oh and another two niche things that might be worth pointing out for GPM SRA score that you get in this round. If you apply in autumn for entry in August, if you do not choose, accept the offer that you're given your M SRA score can be carried on to the next six months. So for some people, they've just had the M SRA now this month for the February intake and they carry over in terms of MSR scores, it only for GP and that's it. And weirdly for obstetrics and gynecology, um I think it's the top 50 in the country. If you score well enough in your M SRA, you can automatically bypass your interview and get your top choice but for all other specialties, it's more of a cut off to get an interview. And this is where I recommended for me for anesthetics. Initially, I was really stressed because I, we, you need to score higher than a cut off. Unfortunately, and that's graded upon basically anyone else who applies for that specialty and how many interview slots there are that year, how much time I should spend. But if you look for, I mean, anesthetics is my specialty. The M SRA at the end of the day, only C counts for 15% of your actual allocation of offers, whereas more time should be spent on your interview. So my approach to the exam was actually in the end a bit more relaxed because I needed to do well enough to get an interview. But more of that focus should have been on my interview or for course surgical training that would have been in your portfolio. So um once you do start revising and you find that you're going in circles being, oh, there's so much knowledge to learn, just take a step back and put in the mindset. How important is this exam relevant to that specialty you want to apply for? Um So moving on to the format of the M sra um again, I think this is a quick introduction, but I think at the end of the day, a lot of this is also down to revision technique. So if you go into the exam, feeling well prepared on just simple things as knowing how the setup is, how much time you have. Um you'll feel a lot more comfortable. So we'll attend these slides in the video, recorded video later if you want to have a look just a few nights before your exam just to re familiarize yourself. Um So no need to jot everything down right now. But it is a long exam and I think when it comes to revising, when we're doing five minutes on the day to day on the question bank, it doesn't, isn't always representative of how that exam will be because you're looking at the screen for a very long time. So it's worthwhile towards the latter end of your vision to probably start thinking about timed papers. And like we know there's two papers and each of them are independently timed and it's like the driving test or the situation of judgment test on the top right corner, there will be um a clock reminding you how much time you have left and you'll also be able to flag questions to that you're not sure of and go back at the end as well. So the 1st 9 to 5 minutes is a professional dilemma paper and it's all very weird. You're sitting in the driving test center, you can put your headphones on to cancel out the noise and it's almost as if you're sitting a situational judgment test again though. The question formats are slightly different. There's only two types um which we'll discuss a bit later and there's a whole webinar that we're going to do, focusing on the professional diam of paper or approaching the situation of judgment test. And in the middle, you're allowed to take a break. And I think this is actually very good to normally prepare and then be like, OK, I'm going to focus for 9 to 5 minutes and then I'm gonna give myself time off quickly, go for a little break. You're also allowed to bring a water bottle into the exam, but you have to leave it outside and you can go and have a drink of water though. Obviously, you still have to be alert, um, because the time is ducted if you go for more than fif five minutes. Um, now the clinical problem solving paper, you're allocated 75 minutes and this is pretty time short. Um No one really knows how many, um, marks you're actually given because there's 95 questions in the paper and the blueprint for this exam hasn't been updated for autumn this year. So our information is still based on last year and we'll update the web page in due course. If anything changes, I'll let you know. But of the 9 to 7 questions, 12 questions are dummy questions that they're using to assess the format exam, but you don't know which of these are the dummy questions on which 85 truly count towards your score. So treat all of them as if the every question counts. Um So timeline wise. So we're now approaching the end of September. And unfortunately, um it's getting dark earlier, but on the right side, that means we have more time to stay indoors and start revising. So, Oreo applications aren't at yet or the relevant specialties, but I'm sure you've already started having a look. I had an idea of what to prepare. And about this time, last year I started, I bought a question bank and during my night, if I had um a bit of a lull 30 minutes, I start casually just doing some questions, just tore, familiar myself with the idea of having to revise again and start RFA myself with some of the D guidelines, simple stuff such as hypertension or and contraceptive management. And I started also looking at my timeline of my role. Unfortunately, if you're on a four month ro of ref two, you might not have the information yet for December and January. But trying to figure out when you could fit in your revision periods, whether you could also even start applying for study leave dates. So um everything happens very fast from suddenly zero to ORO application submitted and about mid December, they'll like always, they'll just release that email and saying M sra bookings are open and you have to do, unfortunately, log on fast to get a time and the location that aren't deal for you. And hopefully that's so sufficient enough time that you can know when your night shifts are, if you have any in January to make sure they don't coincide. And ideally also book some study leave dates before this all sounds like common sense. But as we know in reality when we're working, it's harder said than done. And I did know some colleagues, unfortunately, who had to sit their M SRA after a night shift, which was not ideal. Um In January, you take the M SRA and in February results are released. Um This bit is a little bit confusing and I did end up having to go resort to REDDIT to try and find some stuff out. So even though you can apply to multiple specialties, so for instance, GP and radiology, the results won't be released on the same date, they're relevant to that specialty. And I think specialties where you need an interview such as anesthetics, radiology and surgery, though not always, these should tend to release your results faster. So then you'll know whether you've been invited to interview or not. Um It's up to you, but if you want to know your results earlier, um you could throw in an application for another specialty just to have an idea what your results are before your actual trial and specialty. Just so the idea if you've made the cut off for interview, but obviously though it's the same exam, you're ranked against each other. And unfortunately, the cut off to interview will depend on how popular that specialty is. And therefore the cut up will be higher. And then from February onwards, um if relevant you'll have your interviews and hopefully you'll get they offer to your chosen specialty at a place that you love timeline for the sitting slots are actually really small. Um, think about this because it's just after Christmas for me personally, last year, I was hit by the train tracks at the end of the New Year's season trying to get back to London. So that the so think about alternative options, whether you might want to take some manual leave and sit in a location that's might be less popular, but you're more likely to get the date that you want. And also I sat the exam in London last year. But for others, if you're abroad, um think about locations where if you're, especially if you're in Australia, New Zealand for your F three, doing it, finding a location that you can get to during that time period as well. So like I said, avoid post night shifts and get that studied leave date as early as possible. I think it might be quite hard if you're an easy, but I think you should definitely ask if you can get some time off. Well, just to get yourself in the mindset as well and be relaxed rather than be um doing it the day after a really stressful work shift. So moving on how to prepare everybody revises differently. Um So I would say create a study plan for me. I'm a space repetition learner. So I enjoy going through content first and then review red flagging stuff that I find hard in the question box and going back rereading it, maybe reading some nice guidelines and doing the more relevant questions. But I also know there was another G pr in training last year, he was a crammer. So he took two weeks of annual leave in December and just did 100s and 100s of questions a day and basically used pattern recognition and lots of short term memory to get his good score. So just think about what works for you in med school and re apply the same techniques. And regarding question banks, I think mind the bleep is partial personally for me, I use past medicine and M CQ bank, past medicine because I enjoyed the form at a medical school and there was lots of questions and it was very content heavy. So good for relearning the um nice guidelines M CQ bank um is actually something that was chosen for GP trainees. So the M sri was originally designed for GP recruitment and um a lot of the questions are still tailored towards what would the GP do in each of the clinical scenarios. So I did find that the content might be more relevant to um the M SRA though there are less questions and um and the format is different, I wouldn't say any of them mimic well, the exam, but I always find the question bank is really helpful just to redo your knowledge. And I definitely highly would not recommend opening up all your finals notes again because it's mainly all clinical knowledge rather than going to niche detail about receptors of a drug, et cetera, the mechanism of action of how a drug works. And for some people who have sat the MRC S or the M RCP, more especially the M RCP more recently. Um speaking to people last year, they found that they didn't need to revise as much cos a lot of the content was relevant in terms of clinical knowledge and I do know people that did use books. Um I personally haven't used them, but if that's how you think you'll learn better, I mean, we've all done five or six years of medical school at least. Um then definitely try and find some books that you find helpful flashcards. I wrote some out for really difficult topics um that I was just struggling to get my head around such as emergency contraception, when and what time to use various methods. But I think the key is make sure you stick to your routine and be motivated, especially coming home after a long shift or on nights and you have a zero day, it's it's not always easy to try and get yourself to do a few questions. But if you just block out some time, literally say half an hour each morning and just get consistent and just keep repeating, then, um I think it'll be fine. It's not the most enjoyable revising for exam, but it's definitely doable. Another thing I would also highly recommend is actually we um be an active learner. Um for instance, I was doing my journal surgical job when I was revising and trying to remember the two week, week um targets for when to refer a patient for query, colorectal cancer. And it was quite dull, actually doing the questions and reading the nice guidelines. I was able to memorize it a lot. And then I saw the patients who are um referred him from clinic. And a lot of my friends who did GP in their first patient said that also really helped reme remembering the knowledge. Again, we've as your peers, we have a whatsapp group um designed to do that. And again, like I mentioned before, time yourself, especially with the knowledge section. It's very short, you have about 46 seconds per question that includes reading the stem of the question. And there's a lot of options there. It can sometimes be 8 to 10 options of what the potentially the right answer is. So start reading fast and the more you do, the faster you'll get back into doing all those questions again. So what should you exactly revise? So the situational judgment test, it's, there's not a much out there and uh GP training last year, kindly reminded me all situational judgment tests are based on the good medical practice. So now this is the old booklet and they're releasing the new one for next year. Um You can read the PDF document or I was really keen, probably not ideal for the environment. I actually contacted the GMC for a paper copy. It's a very quick, easy read. Um And just scribble down stuff though, the language is very arbitrary and it's very generic, try and put in to contextualize what sort of stuff they're saying on your daily ward rounds or in clinic or on your daily job because it does make sense. Unfortunately, with reality, what we say we do and what we can do may be different, but it's just being an active learner and utilizing all the stuff that you know. Um And it's all the questions are tailored as, as you are the F two doctor rather than when you were applying for um F one as in you're the F one doctor and the three common competences is very similar to the previous situation and judgment test. Um I won't touch more any more upon cos on October the ninth, we're holding a whole webinar on this as well. So next, um just again, quick, there's two types of questions and the more questions. You do, the more you'll become familiar, 50% are ranking questions. So you um given the scenario five options and then you have to rank for most appropriate, to least appropriate thing to do in that situation. And the other 50% are, you're given a list of eight possibilities and you have to choose from three and this is something that's common sense again, but it's really important to remember. You have to choose the three things that are the most suitable and they're complementary, they work together avi for the knowledge section. So here I want to emphasize it's more about breath than depth. So my thinking and approach to this and I find it really helpful and I hope you find it helpful too. Is this was designed for GP recruitment. So in any scenario, for instance, in uh unwell child, what are the red flags that you need to refer this patient to hospital immediately or when can you um just reassure the parents? So for instance, if they have otitis media, when do you need to provide antibiotics? When do you need to worry about? Um something that's a bit more serious such as Umtiti external and diabetic patients. So it's all about risk management. Essentially, I think is actually the core of a lot of the not that you do need to learn is what does the GP need to know, for instance, what um hypertensive medication do they need to provide provided on their background is that they're also a type one diabetic, et cetera. Um We'll talk more about that. We'll work up on this more on our flashcards on our Instagram web page later on. And again, it's all heavily guideline focused. So I would recommend whatever question bank you use. Um look at the niche details. It's not just about knowing the core topic. What I actually find is there's a lot of niche details in certain scenarios. For instance, um a hypertensive patient on chronic with chronic kidney disease, how will they be managed relevance to a generic patient who walks in fit and well under an 80 with a slightly high BP reading, they ask you wear these questions. Should you then um order an ultrasound scan, dip their urine check their albumins, creatinine. These are all very sensible options but nice kind ones are very bit more specific on what sequence you do things. Um This is basically is a very broad content and I appreciate we only have six rotations in F two or maybe you've done a few more in F three. But um I didn't do any psychiatry GP ophthalmology, um pediatrics or any of genetics, et cetera during F two. So I was a bit and proportionate. They're a lot higher in this exam just because it's for GP trainees as well. So, um lots of questions about vision, we'll give you some flash cards, but again, utilize your peers and if you know what your weak area is, please just spend a bit more time focusing a bit more on Pedes. So adjust your question back and then do only just do p questions for a few days. So you're feeling you're a bit more back up to scratch to your med school finals levels for that sort of knowledge. And although they say these are the competencies that they're um asking, they're all the questions, all word in a similar way that you're testing pretty much same sort of knowledge. But I would uh again emphasize because this is for a GP exam is, is asking, are you a safe doctor? Really? Do you know when a patient needs to go to hospital ASAP, I can refer them to easy if they come to your GP um surgery on an, on an appointment. Um So the clinical problem solving paper, it's made of two options. Um single best answers which are very used to in medical school finals. Um Though I do want to emphasize that it's quite a lot of options. Sometimes, sometimes it's more than the usual five. It can be up to eight options so it can be quite worthy reading this. Um So do time yourself and do time papers because these are long papers with lots of questions. And that's all just a lot of reading to get done was how I felt when I um left the exam and as well, the other option is extended matching questions which aren't that common. So I think we always had a few in my med school at the beginning of say 3 to 5 or you had a long list and then you had a statement and you had to give the correct diagnosis. So again, it's just knowing um quickly to read things and also just learning the key highlights for each um condition. Since this is my next example of a question that I made up um of what do you think is the most appropriate answer? I mean, these are all practically sensible options, but what would be the right answer according to nice guidelines. So, um the correct answer is and most people um have chosen e which is very sensible because he's got all the red flags. He's over 60 but it's actually b it's perform a fecal immunochemical test. So that's what I'm just trying to emphasize here. The M sra is very guideline focused. It's not when you get a question, you, they're not always blatantly wrong, it's always, which is the most appropriate and the nice guidelines have changed. Um So as of October 22 so it's still quite a recent change is that any patient, if they have other red flags symptoms for a suspected lower gi cancer pathway, they should also have uh had a fit test done as well as part of the referral decision. And the reason I was able to consolidate that knowledge was in my general surgery clinic. When I was looking at the GP refers, I notice that every of the patients already had had a fit test with the value. So I think it's really important um when you're doing your question banks, read the nice guidelines because some of them have changed since we've finished med school. Because in the past, the first b answer would be immediate referral for as part of a two week week pathway. But now things even within two years, things have changed. Ok. So moving on and this is something I'm just gonna quickly touch across. But, um, you can come back and look at the slide later and I know it sounds a little bit condescending. And I remember, um, someone telling me this when I was asking advice, how to prepare for the M SRA but this is really important cos a lot of this at the end of the day is down to exam technique. Um Just making sure you're not been on your night shift, you hadn't had a stressful shift before eating. Well, staying hydrated, getting plenty of rest the night before knowing where you're going, knowing your route, knowing that you're not going to be cutting traffic and you're going to catch that train or tube to your center, um, helps so much making you perform well and as well, just, um, if you log on to the person view website that you have a mock demo just reminding yourself how doing the exam online works. I'm sure if you've done the MRC recently, you might be a bit more familiar knowing how to navigate between questions or flagging questions and making sure you're keeping track of time because it is quite time sensitive exam. Um It does, does make a huge difference. Um I don't want, I won't speak anymore because it's condescending, but do remind yourself of that, especially as for me, you hadn't done the exam in a long time and for the professional Diamma questions is revisable, but don't end up thinking too much about it. Sometimes it is also a little bit gut instinct, little bit contradictory to what I'd said, but definitely revise, recognize the patterns as part of the good medical practice, but don't lend up losing, wasting lots of time because you're just thinking overthinking the particular question. Not too much. OK. And um yeah, that's it. And now I'm just going to bring on my friends Aita and um so we can um answer any of the questions that you have um by um going through the ones that are already in the messages and please type away if you have any other questions. Um Oh, I think I can answer this from Geina. So yes, as for anesthetics, the M sra contribution is the same. So we're applying for anesthetics. Um The A CCS and core anesthetics are all in the same clump. So what happens is you do your M SRA if you score above the H of you get access to um you're invited to interview and then you can rank your choices. You can do a combination of A CCS and CO depending on your location. And um yeah, at the end it's the same. So you're applying to the same program even though the programs are slightly different. Um Where can we find that specialties list? Um That is on the mind the bleep website and it's also we'll be sharing this webinar later on as well. Um And helps um for the specialties list. I'm just gonna uh post all the M um M Sra Health Education England website where it tells you which specialties need the M SRA exam. Thanks Aza. Um Any recommendations for question banks? Radica Aza? What, what did you guys use? I used passed and I think I just worked through it three times in total until I was getting consistent scores. II don't know if I uh you two were used. Um Pam was really good for me as well. Um I, what I did is I did it twice as well and then just to have a variation of questions, I also um bought E Medica, which a lot of people previously have stated is most like the M SRA exam. I thought it was useful to have two separate question banks just in case one of them focused more heavily on one specialty compared to the other. And I like going between the two. So I did both of those twice. But I've heard that past have been quite nice. Um, well received. So did say it's not, it's a past the Mr M sra. No. What's the other question? Banks? They are available to you? You might be able to help. I know. So, I used M CQ Bank and past medicine. Yeah. And, um, M CQ Bank. Yeah. Yeah. Um, I only did each of them once but I flagged the ones I find difficult and then the second time around I only went to the ones that I find really tricky instead of doing everything again, but everyone's different. So, whatever works for you. Um, next one. how many studied days are we allowed to take before the exam? So I can answer this one. I think it's really trust dependent and I think, um, there's actually no obligation for the trust to give you days off for the MS. All right. But if you're in a really nice trust and you have a good educational supervisor, good clinical supervisor like I did, I got five days off, um, before, um, because it was a professional exam. Um, so I think it's trust dependent but hopefully you have someone support on your side and they'll be able to give you 45 days additionally if you're on nights, um, kind of before they should move, you from that. I think that's a really fair expectation that if you're on any oncall shifts in the lead up to your M sra, um, you can look into getting taken off those. I think that's completely reasonable. And similarly, if you're on call the day of your M SRA, they have to give you that off and change it. Um, I think there's a legal requirement for that. Yes, I hope I'm pronouncing your name correctly. Um Regarding deferring the entry, I think this is only, unfortunately for GP applications. I know for anesthetics, the MSR score only counts for that sitting or doing it. So if I'm applying in this autumn for August entry, my January score will only count for the August entry. And if I'm applying for February entry, I'll have to resit the M SRA and I don't think you can defer for a whole year. My understanding is their whole cycle is um that whole cycle of say 2022 intake or 22 it's more of an academic year. So for instance, if applied for GP training for August this year, and I wanted to defer you can carry over, but it's only within that one year moving on to the next one. Oh, the cut off score, I actually can't remember the results. Um I think anesthetics was maybe around 540 something like that. So I googled this before this session because I thought there would be someone who would ask? Um So, I it's, it's tough because I don't think they actually formally released these um cut off scores. But U A and I have been on Reddit quite a lot and you'll find that Reddit is quite a useful website to be on um when the score cutoffs come out and it's just a really nice community for everyone being anxious at the same time waiting for the scores. But there uh the cut off D CS anesthesia and um core anesthetics was 540 I think last year. And for uh school training, it was a little bit lower, I think it was about 520. Um And in that range, so that means that that threshold you were invited for interview. However, having said that that might not necessarily be the case this year. The cut offs are depend on everyone else's scores and what they should do, for example, with clerical training, they only take the top 1200 candidates from your M SRA score. So it's not that you have to reach a certain threshold. You just unfortunately have to be the top 1200 candidates applying that year. Um So I would try your best and to try and get the highest score you can um radica, do you know what it was for psych? So, in psych, it's all M SRA based, there is no portfolio, no interview um site. But I think um again, I saw red. It uh obviously it's very location based, but I think people have scores of 4 64 70 were still getting jobs obviously in less desirable locations. But um yeah, um but right now I'd recommend just getting your application in and starting revising. Um So Sylvia as M sra I always sat in January. Yes, for the traditional um intake of either starting your specialty job in August or October. But there is like I said, there was literally a set now in August for people for the future specialties that also has a February intake. And as far I, I'm aware it's mainly GP and there are some anesthetics um um post there as well, but I think there might be a few other specialties, but primarily the big one that everyone does will be in January. And I think that answers your question as well. And as of when can we do the M Sra? Um Thank you Seth for the message Antonia. Um Oh, I guess this is very specific and depending on what your specialty appliances, it depends on your specialty and whether they do do uh and January February intake. Um but for people that was asking about, um can you sit the Rebecca? So can you sit the MSR without applying to the specialty? Unfortunately, you cannot. Um But what I can say and I don't know how I feel about this is that you can throw in the application to any specialty and not proceed with it. And I did know friends who did trial applications though, they wanted to do an F three and go traveling. And for some of the specialties such as GP or anesthetics, there is not much to the actual um application scenario. So it's up to you whether you want to just store an application to a specialty you're interested in. But there's no requirement for a portfolio or white space or blank squeeze questions and just try it out for a year. It's up to you. What would you guys say? I would completely agree with you. I think I've recommended to F two colleagues that they make an application to the GP and just sit the exam, get used to the format even if and if they get the five days of study leave, that's a bonus. It's just useful to familiarize yourself with the process. Why not? I'm sorry, Ellen. You have to be in it. My understanding to do your first trial run and apply an oral. Um Sorry, just before you move on, I think we skipped a question by Rebecca. Um sit the M sra without applying to a specialty like a mock or do you only get invited once a specialty application is made? Oh yes. Like what? Yeah, thanks. A like ri and I said you need to put in a specialty application. You can't sit and mock version. You do have to turn up to Pearson view and treat it like a well, ideally treat it like a real exam whether you want to proceed with the application that you or not. Um So Ruth I don't think you can fail the M SRA, which is quite nice considering in med school there's a pass fail mark. Unfortunately, the way the M SRA is, everyone sits the exam and then you get graded like the S GT and it's a bell curve and that's how you get your score. Do you know the date that they released the booking for the M SRA? I've just checked my emails from last year and I received an invite on the twelth on the 19th of December to book my MSR assessment. Yeah, and we did say latest by 19th of December this year. So it might be the 19th but don't take our word for it. Um which read, oh, sorry, I must one that GP training psych for DK will be able to answer this. Do you rank your preferences of where to work um before the exam or? Um mm That's a good question. Um I think I ranked them before you, you rank them after the exam but before the results are released. Ok. OK. So yeah, that's um hope that's helpful, Lina, which Reddit communities do you recommend actually Reddit doctors UK or, or something or, or I think if you just Google like M SRE exam, reddit, um the links will come up and should the study period be? Um, you're gonna hate the answer. But how long is the, how long is a piece of string? I think, work around what your commitments are. So I knew I was going holiday in December because of COVID. I was really looking forward to going skiing again. After a few years. I was like, I'm not going to revise during those two weeks. So cos then I had Christmas afterwards. So I started a bit earlier and spaced my repetition. Um My revision out cos then I could enjoy two weeks properly over Christmas and not cram but I know others are crammers. And I think Aza unfortunately had the shot gasp of knowing she had to sit at the M sri think quite late on cos he introduced it suddenly for surgical training. Yeah. So for, for co surgical training, I if you don't know this already uh last year or the year I applied was the first year they used the MSR exam and they only let us know, I think a month before the applications opened up. So I think a month after you had already started studying and after the majority of the people had started studying. So and, but that that was completely fine though because even though we had, I think only about 23 months to revise rather than what we wanted, um We were all in the same boat together because all the core surgical training applications are ranked against each other. We don't get ranked against the GP trainees or the psych trainees. Um, I started, I think as soon as I found out late October, early November and continued. So a few months for me, I did, I'm a bit sad but I did 30 minutes every day for about 3 to 4 months and every weekends off, it was very, it wasn't anything heroic at all. It was just quiet in the mornings and II got on with it. So I'll answer Edith's question and that's, do you know what the min and max scores are? So everyone is kind of ranked on a, um, normal distribution with about 500 being average. Um So I think scores of about 600 are actually unheard of. I would say that's probably the maximum, although it is possible to get 600 plus, but I, you already hear about that. I think you don't tend to hear about scores below 400. I would say those are the max and the minimum. I'll answer the CST one. Is it better to sit M SRA or MRC S? Very difficult to answer? Um I did the MRC S part A before sitting the M SRA and I think it helped me with the small surgical sections you do have in the M SRA. Um If you had to choose between the two M SRA is the one to do to actually get into CST you can do the MRC S later. Um So if you have to choose M Sra first, um, and then I'll just answer quickly the Oreo count question. So, um, depends on how organized you were. Unfortunately, I signed up to Oreo with my medical school email account which expired, um, after, um, we left. So I now have two oral accounts. So, um, uh, it depends on whether, which, um, email address you signed up to your oral count. If it was one from your university, then I'm afraid you'll have to create a new one. So Ahmed's question are ophthalmology applicants ran ranked against each other with the general cohort. So I think um from my understanding, you or M sra result is, is it cohort um linked a? Do you, I think you, you get linked with your rest of your cohort. So that's who your competition is. Yeah. Um So um that would be the same for ophthalmology. Yeah, I think the thing is you have to remember is that your, the cohort we're talking about it is not just your ophthalmology peers that are applying. It's literally everyone that's in the M sra if that makes sense as in so your s the way that we calculate your score is if 1000 people sat, the exam, your score will be on a ratio of these 1000 people. How well did you do to your peers? But then if only 100 of those then apply to ophthalmology. Your score is then the cut off is out of the scores of 100 people then that apply for ophthalmology if that makes sense. Mhm Yeah. Um Brilliant. Um So thank you guys all very much for your time and thank you guys for joining a Ritika, really appreciate it. Um I'm just gonna quickly post the QR code. I've put the links in as well um in the chat for everybody else. Um I'll will reply to your messages. Um, but please join the whatsapp group. The link is in the um messages. Um Yeah, we'll look forward to seeing you on the ninth of October.