I wish to state some facts as I witnessed in PLAB Part 1 Exam on 23 January 2006 exam.
1. Exam was generally not too difficult
2. A good number of themes were repeated and many others either modified or entirely new.
3. Many of the repeated ones were already discussed in this forum some recently and others quite some time back.
4. Time management could pose a serious problem to anyone and just like kala (RxPG Member) said also affected me badly...please future plabbers try work on this very prudently.
5. Most questions were very much longer to the ones we were practicing in forums and for me the SBAs were the most annoying and time-consuming. In fact I always had palpitations each time I turned to a page full of SBAs, not a laughing matter.
6. Good experience running easily through familiar questions...makes one gain much time.
Note; Some questions were familiar but unfortunately making a choice among the options wasnt an easy thing either because in this forum, different answers were believed correct by different individuals or because no attempt was made at finding an acceptable answer to the question... so please let everyone be encouraged to make valuable contributions in forums for the benefit of all. I tell you, a sizable number of the unsatisfactorily forum-answered questions may appear in the exam...
A few questions, main ideas;
1 child with pertussis - appropriate drug, there was erythromicin and others
2 child with exercise-induced asthma well controlled initially with B2 bronchodilator but now several doses of same drug with no good effect, what next to give - Na cromoglycate, inhaled salmetrol, and others
3 Pre-op management of some conditions - healthy Afro-carribean for inguinal hernia - no investigation required, sickling test etc
4. Pre-op for a prosthetic cardiac valve patient (I think for cystoscopy)
5. RTA head-on collision with hypotension and widened mediastinum - ruptured oesophagus, ruptured aorta etc
6. Those questions on head injury diagnosis - extradural hematoma, SAH, chronic subdural hematoma, brainstem injury, this wasnt difficult.
7. Man with mild led oedema, papulovesicuar rash all over the body non blanching with some necrotic ones - diagnosis; herpes zoster, systemic vasculitis, meningococcal septicemia etc (a real crazy question)
8. Many questions on Psychiatry - unfamiliar and familiar ones like the female lawyer losing confidence in self and believes shes a failure - appropriate management
9 postnatal woman with some delusional problems - believes husband is planning harming mother and baby - appropriate management
10 Those popular stab injuries on the chest and abdomen with hypotension - most appropriate management
11. Question on testicular torsion - immediate mgt, there was our usual option of surgical exploration and others
12. Question on testicular tumor - diagnosis from a histological description
I hope more people will come up to add to, or to modify what has already been submitted. Best of lucks to all
Note: Originally posted on PLAB Part 1, 23 January 2006 discussion thread at http://www.rxpgonline.com/postx40924-0-0.html.
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