STASH: Please get your stash orders in to Becca by 14th April '10!!!
Practice AMK: Do a daily practice AMK question by clicking the link here!
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Assessment

So we do all this learning, but how do we know if it's all going in? Enter - Assessments! And in true Peninsula style, it's not like your normal assessments... and they're all acronyms. Scores are relative, so the bottom 5% get Unsatisfactory, the next 10% get Borderline and the top 5% get Excellent. Everyone else gets Satisfactory. You want Satisfactory or above: if you get too many Borderlines or Unsatisfactories, you have to remediate i.e. do it again, you meet your dreaded Academic Tutor and risk repeating the year.

 

AMK Applied Medical Knowledge as it's known is a 3-hour, 125-question multiple choice exam with 5 options. 4 are legit and 1 is Don't Know (you'll be using that one a lot). 1 mark for a right answer, 0 for don't know and -0.25 for a wrong answer. We take 4 each year and your score is collated at the end. Best of all, it's a generalised test which every year takes, all the way up to year 5, so it's set at junior doctor level. Before you start screaming at me, don't worry, it will be the first test you'll ever do where you'll be happy with 10% cos what with guessing and luck, that's what you'l be scoring. The general rule of thumb is - if you can whittle it down to 2-3 options, give it a go. You'll probably end up going for 40 questions and getting more right than you think. Weird, no?
End of Year MCQ An AMK-style exam taken at the end of year, with selected questions on things we are supposed to know rather than just random ones from all of medicine. You either have to pass this or all four AMKs to pass the year. You're expected to know this junk so obviously, the pass mark is higher - great! 
SSU All you really have to do is get over the pass mark. Generally, 11 out of 20 should do it, so you'll be ok, just make sure you don't give up silly marks for errors in references etc.
Competencies Based on certain CSRC skills, we do competencies where the nurses watch you doing something and tick boxes. You get 4 attempts to pass. If you fail one but just calm down and think logically and it should be fine. Done on things like taking blood pressure, basic life support, cardiovascular examinations etc. But just watch out for the obvious ones i.e. washing your hands and rolling up your sleeves before starting!
PPD Personal & Professional Development. The bane of our existence, because we aren't just going to be doctors, we're going to be pillars of society!! It's pretty straightforward though, you get judgements from PBL, JIGSAW, SSU and CSRC and you just have to make sure you're polite, friendly, interact with everyone, take part and don't say anything stupid! Might sound obvious, but people have failed the year on PPD because of saying the wrong thing or doing the wrong thing! Just play it cool and you should score pretty well.