You can screw up in exams in unexpected ways despite your best efforts. In my case, I read about Down syndrome 3 times before the clinical exams, and yet I was so stunned when it came out. The examiner asked me to enumerate all of its features in all of its features in all systems. Man was I screwed, as I suddenly all my knowledge blacked out. I expected a 48/49 (borderline fail), but luckily I got a 50 because of her mercy. I wasn't actually worried bout my long case, but I did have a not-so-good history with him, so I wasn't holding my breath for high marks.
And surprisingly, one of my friends failed because of the theory papers. That's not something most students stress about during exams; it's always clinical, clinical, clinical. Well, sometimes, we can overlook the theoretical part of clinical medicine. 2 only out of 28 passing the MCQ isn't very encouraging, I must say. But anyways, I'm still keeping to my strategy of answering MCQ's to study topics for the MCQ's and patient management and problems (PMP's), and I find that it works just fine. For the clinical aspect, I find that having a good instinctive examination routine is paramount; that certainly helped me for my long case, as examining the patient was quick and smooth, allowing me to focus on getting a complete history from a patient's father who is an aborigine, making communication suboptimal.
But I'd still enjoy the posting for the fact that it's the lightest of them all. A nice posting to not have as your first; to catch a breath before the very clinical extensive surgery and internal medicine.
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