Student BMJ & doc2doc
When you take a break from your exam preparation work, have a look at some websites that I find both interesting and useful. I’d advise you once again to start with the Student BMJ portal and perhaps register to fully benefit from what this on-line community offers you. Their mission is described here and, among other things, they run a section dedicated to exams — not completely free of charge, I’m afraid :( , www.onexamination.com — (I inserted below a message from the editor).
The “mother” website, BMJ Group (of which the leading British Medical Journal is now just a separate section) provides a wealth of valuable resources. For example, you can benefit from on-line modules offered by BMJ Learning.
If you want to get a glimpse of interesting as well as useful issues originating from [young] physicians, you may want to visit and join the doc2doc forums that claim to connect doctors ‘worldwide’. They also have some funny stuff there, such as “What’s the oddest thing you’ve ever heard a patient say?” or useful advice for new medical students. As they are celebrating one year of existence, they have published an e-Book.
I hope you’ll enjoy at least some of the material on these websites. If that’s the case, why not post a comment and/or a link on our website to let other students enjoy that as well?
And now for a “taster”:
Top 3 tips on how to pass exams, according to the www.onexamination.com editor:
As the Medical Student editor for the BMJ’s online resource www.onexamination.com, I frequently get asked for tips on how to pass exams. Please find below my top three pieces of advice that every medical student should know.
1. Don’t learn – do understand. Medicine is complex. Simply learning facts is one sure way to make the exam season stressful. Understanding a topic will lead to a firm foundation for facts to be built upon. As topics in medicine often build upon earlier ideas, understanding topics as you cover them will ensure a steady progression to success throughout your training period.
2. Don’t only learn to remember, but learn to forget. Humans are remarkable creatures not only because they can remember, but more importantly because they can forget. When listening to a friend speak in a noisy bar, the ability to ignore background noise is as important as the ability to hear a voice in the first place. Try not to concentrate on large swathes of small print details when first learning a topic, but instead understand and remember the main issues. Only once this has been achieved should the minor facts be filled in.
3. Practice, practice, practice. When learning a new sport, although the individual skills are often taught separately, it is important to bring them together in the form of a game. Unless you practice sitting mock exams, you will not fulfill your potential. Practicing exams using online or printed sources under exam conditions is a sure way to increase your marks and decrease your stress levels on the day of the real exam.
If anyone has questions they would like to ask, please do not hesitate to get in touch.
Dr Matt Morgan
Medical Student Editor, www.onexamination.com