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Hello. Can you guys hear me? Hey, everyone. Uh If you can hear me just type something in the chat box. Uh We'll give it a minute or so for more viewers to come on and then we can start if that's OK. Perfect. Mhm. Right. Guys, I'll just give it another minute. Um And then we'll start uh throughout the talk. If you have any questions, feel free to write them in the chat box and I'll get to them and I can see them. Um And at the end, I'll be sharing my email um for you guys to contact me at today at your time if you have any other questions. Um And also to email me regarding resources cause I've got um some notes I'd like to share with everyone. Um Basically for exam prep for them. Sorry. All right. Um I think we can start now. So my name is Hoja Abdullah. Um I'm one of the plastics themed core surgical trainees um in the northeast today. I'll be talking to you guys about the MSR exam. We'll talk about the structure of the exam, the resources used tips and tricks um to study and also to pass and also to get a very good grade and um we'll leave questions um to the end, I think. But if you have any pressing questions at the minute, when I'm, when I'm talking, you can always start them in the chat box. Um and I'll answer them to the best of my ability. So if that's all right, we'll move on to the first part. So you've got the M SRA exam, it's the Multispecialty recruitment assessment exam. It's um it was recently introduced into the core surgical training application process um for long listing just last year uh to the dismay of many, but um it's not anything you guys should be anxious about. Um It's just another thing that we have to do to get our training number which is fine. Um It's not a hard exam, it just needs some prep. Um And hopefully today's session will be a bit insightful. So the exam has two main components. Uh It's got the clinical problem solving paper which is more of a academic um clinical type of questions. And then you've got the professional dilemmas paper. So the professional dilemmas paper is more of a situational judgment test if you've ever done one. And I'll talk more about that in detail in the next coming slides. So as you guys can see, it says that the MSR is now used for the selection process and specialty training, but it's not only for core surgical training. It's also for all of these other specialties. So if you are interested in applying to other specialties, say you like co you wanna do surgery, but you're also interested in emergency medicine or radiology, um or neurosurgery, obstetrics and gynecology and all of the others on this list. Um you can take the exam and you can apply to all of these specialties. And then once you get your interviews, also, once you get the results of your exams and interviews, you can then decide on whether you wanna be a surgeon or an obstetrician or a radiologist. So I think this exam opens up doors. Um It's not just uh another thing that we have to do, it's um it helps you make decisions on what you wanna do in the future. So that's the specialties that are used. Um And now we'll talk about the exam structure. So the exam is broken down into two papers as mentioned, you've got the professional dilemmas. Um There are 50 questions um on that paper um as per last year um of those fif so for those 50 questions, you've got 95 minutes to answer them. You then you've got a five minute break in between the first and the second paper. And the second paper is the clinical problem solving paper. It's 97 questions and you've got 75 minutes to answer those questions. So we'll talk about the first paper. So the professional dilemmas it's in essence, a situational judgment test. Um It measures how a candidate believes they should behave when posed with a specific dilemma. Um When you're answering these questions or these dilemmas, you should do it in the context of um the foundation program. Basically, meaning that you should always assume in the question that you're the foundation. You too doctor. And this is important because the question might involve steps to escalation. Um Things that you can do with competencies of uh foundation year two, as opposed to say someone who's ast four or a foundation year one doctor. So you should um even if the question doesn't say so, you should always assume that you're a foundation year two doctor. Um And the test, this paper basically covers three core domains. It covers professional integrity, coping with pressure, empathy and sensitivity. Um And this just means that when they select the questions they wanna put on the exam paper, they will use those core domains. So for example, with empathy and sensitivity, they might bring a question along the lines of you have a colleague at work. They're not coping well, they um are staying, they to finish tasks, they're overwhelmed. Um And then the actions that you're presented where you have to rank them in terms of appropriateness to that specific dilemma. So, actions like um talking to the f talking to the colleague, ensuring that they have support, making sure that they speak to their educational supervisor um you providing help. So you have to rank how appropriate those actions are to that particular dilemma. And those dilemmas as mentioned will come from these three core domains. Um There are two types of questions you will face in the professional dilemmas paper, you've got the ranking questions. So with the ranking questions, you will first get the scenario and then the question will be rank in order the following actions in response to the situation. One being most appropriate five being least appropriate. Sometimes you're presented with four actions and not five actions. So then four, the number four will be the least appropriate action. So you're asked to judge the appropriateness of these 4 to 5 independent actions and you need to think about each of these actions independently. So, so this basically means that you don't think that the um this action and that action can be done together to be the most appropriate response to that scenario. Um And I'll give an example of what, how this question looks like. So this will make more sense. Um And the second part of or the second type of question you can encounter in the professional dilemmas are the multiple choice questions. So with the multiple choice questions, you get the question or the dilemma and then you get 8 to 12 probably um actions that you can um select, you can only select three most appropriate actions out of those eight possible ones Um And then those three actions you take are done together, they're taken together to resolve that dilemma. They're not independent like the first step of question, which was the ranking question. So I've got uh an example here in the next slide. Sorry. So on the left, you've got the multiple choice question. So you, you're given the dilemma um sorry, the, the font might be a bit too small, but you're given the dilemma there and then you asked select the three most appropriate actions to take in the situation from the list below. Um So you read each one and what, what I do is I usually read this scenario very carefully and then I read all of the actions again, very carefully. And then I can immediately rule out the ones that seem very inappropriate. So just go by exclusion and then when you get to say four or five that you think are appropriate, you have to use your, I wanna say clinical judgment basically to think to select three of them that are the most appropriate taken together. Um On your right, are the ranking type of questions. So again, you're presented with the dilemma um and then you're asked to rank them in order of the following rank the following actions in response to the situation, one being most appropriate, five being least appropriate. So you read the question and you don't rank them in chronological order of what you, what you would do first what you would do. Second. No, it should be in order of most appropriateness. So, um uh feel free to read these um scenarios and then answer them at your own time. If you have any questions about them, you can write them in the chat box below. Um And I've got the answers in the back, but we won't go through them today. Um And then going back to the overview about the professional dilemmas as mentioned, the ranking questions, um The correct response is a single action. So each action has to be ranked um based on level of appropriateness. While the multiple choice questions, you select three answers that are appropriate when taken together in response to the dilemma. So that was the first paper and the second paper is a clinical problem solving paper. So this paper is more or less your final med exam. It involves a lot of specialties, a lot of topics. You can get 10 questions in gastroenterology and just one endocrinology question. But when you're studying, it's important to have a general knowledge on all of these topics cause anything can come up. And I can't really guarantee what is high yield and what says low yield, unfortunately. But um we'll talk about tips and tricks when studying and how to utilize um the next coming months uh in preparation for the exam. So the clinical problem solving paper, it covers five co domains. Um you should be efficient um in providing answers in specific clinical conditions in regards to their investigations and diagnosis and emergency management and recognition uh of emergency cases, um prescribing questions and also management questions that are non prescribing. So there are two types of questions you will encounter in the exam in the second paper. Um The extended matching questions, uh you will be presented with a list of up to 12 responses or a answered and then you'll get five questions after that. Um Each being maybe a sentence or too long. Uh And it will be questions asking you to select one of the 12 answers from the top. And you can use that specific answer once more than once or not at all when responding to the five sets of questions. And I'll give an example in the next slides. Uh The second type of question you can get is the single best answer question. So you're asked to select the single most appropriate answer out of all of the answers based on the question. And I think this is the uh the easiest type of question to get wrong because so sometimes when you're reading the, the scenario, people tend to skip over what the question is really asking you. So if it's asking you um what the um gold standard diagnosis is, um or what the best investigation is sometimes just skipping over that question and selecting the answer you think it is, is uh just might be a bit too, you might be going too fast, I think. And that's where people usually drop the ball with the single best answer. And I'll give you an example of where things can go wrong uh with the single best answer questions. So on the right side, you can see where the single breast answer que how, how it looks like basically the single breast answer question. So you got the scenario and it asks which of the following is the most likely diagnosis. But you could also be asked um or the scenario could basically be a patient who has a specific clinical condition. Um and is asking you for the in uh what the most appropriate investigation is. Um And the the answers could range from being uh most of them could be correct. But when you read the questions some carefully, you might, you might find out that the patient is vitally unstable and that will change what the most appropriate investigation is at that particular moment. So what I'm really saying is read the questions very carefully. I know you only have 75 minutes for this paper. Some questions might be straightforward while other ones might be the tricky ones trying to catch you out. So be very careful when answering these types of questions. And then on the left, you've got extended matching questions. I like these ones because they get to the point there's 1 to 2 sentences long. It's about really recognizing, um, clinical signs and symptoms and risk factors. Um, and then once you read the question, you've already glanced over all of the possible answers. When you read the question, you already have an idea of what the answer could be. Quickly look over the questions of the answers again and select the appropriate one or the correct one. Um, remember you can use the same answer once twice or, um, never, you can basically not use uh You can leave out a couple of these answers just because they're not the correct ones. So we move on to resources. So for my exam last year, I used two resources. I used past medicine and I use past test II really like past medicine just because you've got up to 2500 questions of for the uh for the basically for the clinical problem. So paper. Um And then you've got 250 questions for the professional dyle for you to review. Um These questions also get updated. I'd say every 3 to 4 days I've noticed because when I was doing the questions, um I realized that the number of questions I had left kept increasing as the days went by um as if I've done nothing as if I've not finished all of these questions, but just turns out that they're adding more questions to the question bank and the more questions you do, the likelihood of you getting a better mark at the end is better, I think just because you've done a lot of practice. So I really like past medicine and it also offers two full mock tests um that you can take um that replicate how the exam feels and also is um in, in regards to it asks you to sit in an uh in a quiet area without any distractions. Um and just mimic the exam uh environment past test is also really good. Um I liked past medicine more just because I like the explanations to the answers more. Um And the explanations to the answers also is very important when you come to the professional dilemmas question because it isn't really anything that's clinical knowledge. It's more of your judgment as a physician, how you think you should respond um to a particular ethical or a clinical scenario. Um Some people do recommend reading the GMC Guidances. Um You could if you have the time, but I think just reading the explanations on the question bank and understanding them is sufficient. Um So those are the two resources I use. And when I did pass medicine, um I finished a, a full round um of the past medicine questions. And then I did a second round only on the questions I got wrong and the questions I flagged up and this really helped me prep for the exam and for the mock tests, I took them towards the end of my exam revision. Time, the first mock test I took at the beginning of the week, just the week before my exam and the second mock test I took it uh two days before my exam and that's helping you just build up that stamina to sit through. Um basically a long time of answering questions, uninterrupted. Um Yeah. And with resources, I'd say don't overwhelm yourself with many because if you type into Google um M sra resources, you'll get up to seven T tabs, probably of like potential resources we could use. I say pick one or two you like and stick with them. Um That's the resources um advice I can give and now with tips um when you're revising, you should really make a revision schedule or a steady schedule and that schedule should take into account your work schedule cause most of you are um working on calls, night shifts. Um Other things you've got other things on your schedules. So it's very important that on the days that you're very busy, the target number of questions you set yourself um is not, this is less than the questions you set your, you set a target to do on days that you're on a normal working day or you're off. Um So it's very important to plan your revision schedule um early on and I say start 2 to 3 months early um when you're setting for this exam just to give yourself more time to pick up the pace cause if you give yourself, say four weeks before the exam, you have to get into the steadying mood. Um And that takes time to get into. So I'd say 2 to 3 months start slow and then you pick up the pace and then it starts to become a habit. Um And you get to do more and more questions every day to start slowly but surely get better, get easier for you to do. Second tip I have is organize your study material. So like we talked about earlier, don't overwhelm yourself with 58 resources. Pick one or two, you really like stick to them, finish. Um As many questions as you can cause the best studying tip I have for M sra is just questions, questions, questions. Um And when you're studying, don't do passive reading, uh don't just read through the explanations and move on, you have to actually understand the the context of the answer and what the answer is. Why this diagnosis is better than that one. Why this answer is correct? Why this answer is incorrect? Um Just because medicine is evolving some things that you've studied or answered back in medical school might not, might not be as accurate now as they were one or two years ago. So make sure that you use active learning techniques when you're studying for me that was using flashcards. Um And I also have post it notes or sticky notes uh that I'd write, um, down the things I tend to forget and then stick them. Um, where, where, like in the environment that I study in, in the room I study in and then just quickly glance over them every day just to make sure that I remember the specific topic. Um, so use whatever you feel comfortable with. I know some people like to use ony flash cards. I don't know anyone who has a Ony flashcard um deck that is available to everyone to use. But um if I find that if I find that I can always make sure to email um that resource to you. Um And for mock tests, I'd say 1 to 2 weeks before your exam. Make sure that you sit. Those mock tests don't do it early on cause early on your knowledge isn't really as good as the end towards the end of your revision time. Um So one or two weeks before the exam sit the mock tests. If you have two or three mock tests, you can take space them out, don't do them back to back. Um And BECA and these mock tests when you're done, especially with past medicine, it will give you like a overall global feedback on which topics you did really well in and which topics you need more revision on. And that can help guide your last um three or four days of revision things you need to focus on really um mental and physical wellbeing. There's no point in really studying when you're mentally burnt out and physically exhausted. Um And as I mentioned earlier, the way to overcome stress and anxiety about studying is really starting early. Um That way you can give yourself time to get used to getting into that study mood and then pick up the pace slowly. And then you can also put, put in days to relax with friends and family and not feel guilty about not studying if you know what I mean. Um And with each milestone and studying you accomplish, you should always remember to reward yourself. Um That really helps you keep up that motivation and confidence to continue and keep going. And last tip I have is time management. So when you're studying, you shouldn't really have your phone, social media, your TV, on things around you that can distract you. Um I use the pome technique so I'd study 20 five minutes, focus, studying time and then give myself a five minute break, then another 25 minutes, then another five minute break. And that way that just helped me maintain a longer period of studying as opposed to taking an hour break and then studying for 30 minutes. Um But if you have your own um way of studying or your own time management techniques that you like to study with, feel free to do them, whatever works for you, I'd say just stick to doing that. And if you don't have a particular way you study whether studying um try the palmetto technique. It, it really works with me just to keep me focused. Um and set goes for your study sessions to keep you motivated, just like I mentioned earlier with your um mental wellbeing. So um the questions do, do we know what the pass rate is or the threshold is for CST? Uh Yeah, just like Shreya mentioned. Um there's no official cut off uh last year. It was around that number, but it might change. It really depends on that. So it sounds slightly mean, but it really depends on how bad other people do or how well other people do um um during the year that you take the exam because they um scale it up or down based on how many people have taken the exam and how many people did really, really well. So the cuts up for this, you could change potentially. Um Do we need any books or is past medicine enough? Uh I don't think you need any books to be completely honest with you. I think for me, at the very least past medicine was more than enough. Um just make sure that you understand the explanation. So when you answer the question, the explanations at the bottom, you, you thoroughly understand it. And if you don't, um you can always then use other resources to certify that um information, but there's no textbook or anything that are used. Um And then yeah, back to the slides. So with the, with, with booking the exam, I'd say so after you submit your application on oral, a couple of weeks down the line, you'll get an email on a random day at a random time. D uh it just happens really randomly where you're told that the uh that you're now able to book the exam. So you have to create your um Pearson View account online and that account is associated with your credentials from or uh once you're invited for the exam, you will then be required to log on to the Pearson View account and then book your exam center date and time and that is subject to availability. So just as I said earlier with it being a random time, sometimes when you're on call, you don't get your emails fast enough. Um And at the end of the day, you find out that they released the M sra booking seven hours ago and all of the tests, all of the booking times or slots at the test center that's closest to you is fully booked. So just make sure your notifications are on um at all times in the future, keep your eye on the emails. Um And once you get that email, find the closest exam center to you and book the book the date and time. Um And also make sure to let your um your work um rotor person know just so you can take your study leaves and arrange um it uh and arrange cover if you're on call or if you're on not. Um So for the exam day, um I'd say have something very light for breakfast. Um pack your ID, documents, water and a light snack for the journey and plan to arrive at the testing center 15 to 30 minutes early. Um It will help calm the anxiety and stress and sometimes exa depending on the exam center, at least the one in Newcastle, it lets you sit. The exa say you came in 15 minutes early, you can start the exam 15 minutes early. You don't have to wait until exactly when your allocated time is to start the exam. As soon as you're checked in security, I have checked you through, you're able to sit the exam. Um The, when we talked about the structure of the exam earlier, remember between the first and the second paper, there's a five minute optional break. Um that five minutes optional break. Uh You, you can take it. Um but I don't recommend leaving your desk and getting up and going to the bathroom or um going out and having a snack and coming back just because if you get, if you leave the testing room, you'd have to be checked in by security again when you come in. And if you miss that five minutes, there's a, there's a potential for that um for that to lead to maybe a disqualification or for the exam to start automatically and you lose time. So if you wanna take those five-minute break completely fine, just try to remain seated. Um and then start your exam. And if you choose to take a break, you don't have to take the first five minutes, you get the option to just have a break for say a minute or two and then click next and you can start the second paper. So that's all the advice I have uh guys. Um And as I mentioned earlier, uh I have when I was studying, I made like this booklet of um 400 something pages um of study me uh of of notes I made while I was studying. Um and I can happily share it with you guys. So I don't really, I don't think we can upload it to me all. So what I'll do is I'll pop my email in the chat box. Um And if you guys have any questions or want the um the uh that booklet I made, just give me an email. Um And I'll send it to you guys. Um And if anyone has any questions, feel free to write them in the chat box. When do you do this exam? And when would you say we should do a more CS in relation to this? Is it hard to balance all of this while working as an F one F two? So, um So uh M SRA is in January as far as I'm aware, um last year it was in January II hope or I think this year it is in January as well. You can potentially take the MRC S um after that. And the next setting for MRC S is in May. But if you think that your, your third rotation or your second rotation is a heavy one, if you um just wanna take a break afterwards, you don't really have to take MRC S in May. You can take it in October of the following uh of the same year cause there's MO I think three sets of MRC S uh per year. So uh if you feel um confident enough or ready enough or you don't feel overwhelmed, I say go for it, you can definitely take the uh MRC S exam in May or in October whenever you're comfortable. Um But for now, I think the priority is M SS ra. So there you, you, there's no point in doing MRC S if you don't do well in M Sra and then don't get an interview in court training and then don't get into court training if you know what I mean, uh focus on one exam at a time. That's my, my personal opinion. Um But once you're done with M Sra and have that out of the way, you can definitely set the next MRC US the uh time which is in, I think either in May next year or in October next year. Um You get invited to do the exam when you submit your application for CST. Yes. Um uh When you submit your application to CST, if, if all of the things that you've submitted in the application, uh don't need any other proof or evidence. Um then yes, you will automatically be invited to the exam. Is it a advice to take notes while practicing question banks? Uh I did um and it helped me just because I it's like an active recall. So when I was typing the my notes, it was like revising the question. Um and then whenever I was studying something else and I wanted to go back to a different point, uh I already have that note written down. I didn't have to go looking for the question if you know what I mean. So take notes, they don't have to be the need test uh But whatever works for you. Um No worries guys. What advice would you give for the fourth year medical students in terms of uh in terms of MSR and MRC S. Um it's a bit early. Uh I think for you guys to be worrying about Mr MSR or MRC S. But um just make sure that when you're studying in med school, uh that uh you just reinforce all of that information and when you go to your rotations, you just try to bring all of that textbook knowledge, you have to the rotations and try to um see different diagnosis, different treatments, different conditions, ask questions on your rotations just to see how things are done practically and how things are done in textbooks and the difference between them. Um If you, if you're very keen um for Mr for MRC S, I'd say that I know some people um who've done MRC S in their fi first year foundation, so foundation year one. Um but uh you don't really have to do that, but I don't think you can sit MSR that early. To be honest, the there's no point in doing that exam that early, but just make sure that you, your clinical knowledge is up there and studying for your final med is exactly like studying for MSR in my opinion, at least uh A is a heart exam. It would be better if you have some clinical practice in the workplace. Yeah, I do agree. Uh 100%. Um That's why I think going to your rotations and seeing how things are done in hospitals pra practically is important just because when you're, when you, when you get the question and you wanna answer the question going, trying to remember something written in a textbook is harder than remembering something that you've done in read life. Um So clinical experience is really, really important with exams. Um So m my email is Hoja mooi at gmail.com. So if you guys send me an email saying I'd like the PDF or I have a question, then I can reply to your emails with that PDF. Um Could you please guide for interview preparation? Um There is, there is an upcoming session um for interview prep. But if you have any questions specifically after that session or anything, you can always send me an email and I can share my, my experience as well is the earliest you would set the M SRA F two. So you can only sit the M Sra. Um once you've submitted your application um through a yet. So you can really only sit at an F two and it doesn't carry over to the next year. So say you sat at an F two. Unfortunately, you didn't get the job you wanted and then you apply again next year. You, the emissary you did for the year before will not carry through. You have to set it again. Um Does anyone have any other questions? If not? Thank you guys so much for joining. Um Just send me an email and I'll get you the resource and feel free to share those resources with everyone. Um Even your colleagues who aren't in applying to co surgical training, anyone who's sitting in Missouri just feel free to send those notes to them. Um When can you sit the MRC S? So if you go on to the Royal College of Surgeons website, they show you the exam dates um they do them three times a year and uh MRC S, it really depends. So for some people, the best time to sit them is when you've done some surgical jobs, um you have some clinical experience and insight and also you've got time to study because the exam requires a lot of prep and uh exam, uh prep time to sit the exam. Um I'd say towards the end of F two would be maybe the best time to study, especially if your third rotation is a light one. not to study, sorry to sit the exam to sit for MRC S. Um Just because once you get into core surgical training, uh you can, you, you can do MRC S once you're in course surgical training, but then you have to juggle that with all of the other requirements that you have to do as a core surgical training. So it gets quite difficult. But um I think F two would be the best time. There's no right or wrong time guys. You can, you do whatever you're comfortable with. But uh practically speaking, I think after F two. Yeah, that's the email. All right guys. Thank you so much um for attending. Um And yeah, have a great night. No worries.