Medical Educator - Medical students, revise for your OSCE medical student exam with our free MCQs, EMQs, videos, podcasts, downloads.

Listen to this patient's symptoms, that will encompass different clinical features. Then try and provide a differential diagnosis. Let Medical Educator guide you through the process to reach a conclusion of what is wrong with this patient. Remember you can listen to more podcasts, get MCQs and EMQs, watch clinical skills videos, and download 'one minute' revision guides in the medical finals login area of the site (/student/login).

In your medical finals, as with any examination in a clinical setting, you will be asked by the examiners "how would you complete the medical examination?". You need a simple, precise way of explaining this to your medical finals examiner. We will talk you through a simple approach for all of the abdominal organ systems in this podcast. "To complete my medical finals examination, I would like to examine the... Hernial orifices External genitalia Digital rectal examination Inspect observation charts Relevant organ systems, for example peripheral vascular examination" Notice we have not abbreviated terms, and given the medical finals examiner closure, putting the ball back in his court to ask more questions. Remember you can listen to more podcasts, get MCQs and EMQs, watch clinical skills videos, and download 'one minute' revision guides in the medical finals login area of the site (/student/login).

Today we look at renal function as requested on a blood test and the eGFR, which is now in vogue for measurement of a patient's baseline renal function. The NSF recommends that kidney function should be assessed and monitored using an eGFR, rather than serum creatinine concentration alone, in people identified as having an increased risk of chronic kidney disease. Listen to more podcasts in the login area (http://www.medicaleducator.co.uk/student/).

In the lead up to finals time our latest podcast could be really useful for your practical sessions. In it we discuss how you will get the best out of presenting findings to an examiner in a medical student final OSCE or VIVA situation. These situations can be stressful and if you dont think about your presentation skills you won't come across professionally or with confidence. Take a listen and help develop your presentation skills. Remeber there are over 30 podcasts in the revision section of the site (http://medicaleducator.co.uk/student) to help you with your medical student exam revision.

Medical Educator authors marched in 2007 to support the rights of junior doctors and to protest about what became known as the MTAS fiasco. "A bungled reform a day keeps the Junior doctors away" was the verdict form the Telegraph newspaper. But what was behind the story of MMC (the Modernisation of Medical Careers), who were the individuals involved in supporting the rights of those doctors, and what is the state of play now, nearly 2 years on from doctors marching through the streets of London. A representative of RemedyUK (http://remedyuk.org/), the key organisation behind the junior doctor movement speaks to Medical Educator. Dr Marks is a Consultant Anaesthetist, former training programme director, and spokesperson fro Remedy UK. Here he speaks to James Bateman, from Medical Educator. Thanks for speaking to us Richard. You got involved with RemedyUK after you were disappointed with how the Government had handled the MTAS situation? Yes, RemedyUK started in November 2006 and I joined it in January 2007. Of the key 6 people who started it, I was the last one in..... When I came in I had spent the whole of 2006 trying to get our local training rotations to work under MMC [modernising medical careers], but I simply couldn't make it work. The recruitment system looked like it was just going to be a big mess. I was feeling despondent, but then I went to a meeting of RemedyUK. They were planning a protest march, and I thought, if anyone's going to sort it, then these guys will. I think the march had a very large impact on doctors at the time. The vast majority of junior doctors in the UK were either aware of the march in 2007 about MTAS (Medical Training Application Service), or on it. Do you think the campaign has reached medical students? Not really. We have medical students in the hospital that I work at. I don't think that most of them are aware of what the problems are. We tended to agree from our own experiences of contacts with students. We then asked Dr Marks to tell us a little about the current legal campaign. He highlighted the background to the MTAS enquiry following the march in 2007. He went on to describe the potential problems with dealing with a regulatory body (the GMC) and the existing organisation the BMA (British Medical Association) who had been perceived by many junior doctors to be less vocal in the defence of its members. He went on to say: MTAS was technically just a computer system but it was the whole application process around the recruitment which was the disaster. The BMA had called for it to be stopped, but didn't really do much more than that. There was then some legal proceedings between thee two organisations which we will not cover in any more detail here. Dr Marks also commented: The bad thing was that for the first time run-through training was being offered, which meant that the stakes for getting or not getting a job were higher than ever before. Dr Marks makes a point here that resonates with colleagues who are junior doctors: the failure to get onto a training programme was almost seen as a "one shot" approach: failure meant that you were then destined to pursue a different speciality. The process by which you would get or not get a job seemed to be less fair, and there were a lot of issues around the recruitment process. We thought it should never have been allowed to happen. This is echoed by the grass roots support of RemedyUK by junior doctors. Want to see for yourself? Ask a doctor that you work or train with! Dr Marks then highlighted a series of reviews that cast a damning verdict on the MTAS process. Read more about them here, or listen to the podcast. The summary of the verdicts was as follows... All the independent reviews said in various ways that was a complete disaster. The role of the regulatory body for doctors in the UK, the GMC, was then discussed. What we (RemedyUK) then thought was, why hasn't the GMC taken a view on this? On two grounds...

From wikipedia: "An arterial blood gas (ABG) is a blood test that is primarily performed using blood from an artery. It involves puncturing an artery with a thin needle and syringe and drawing a small volume of blood. The most common puncture site is the radial artery at the wrist, but sometimes the femoral artery in the groin or other sites are used. The blood can also be drawn from an arterial catheter, a central venous catheter, or a superficial capillary sample such as a finger or heel prick." A lot of medical students can get confused with the measurements and values present on an arterial blood gas when it is analysed. Here we discuss these things and then talk through a basic arterial blood gas interpretation. Listen to the podcast below: There are now over 20 audio guides behind the login area, and a video demonstrating an arterial blood gas. Take out a free trial today and see the revision tools, questions, and content on offer (http://http://medicaleducator.co.uk/student/login/).

Today we are focussing on chest pain and listening to a patient describe their problems. Chest pain is is one of the most common reasons to be seen and assessed on an emergency department in the UK. Listen to the patient and try to diagnose - then see what our diagnosis is for the chest pain. We have added over 20 new audio guides to the login area, take out a the free trial today to take a look (http://medicaleducator.co.uk/student/login/).

We're launching our podcast service in the coming weeks. It will include history interpretation, exam guides and the like. Try listening to our sample audio. Enjoy!

MP3 File:    musculoskeletal-case-history (http://medicaleducator.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/musculoskeletal-case-history.mp3) Copyright Medicaleducator.co.uk  2008 At MedicalEducator we look towards providing a true multimedia experience. One of teh ways we can do this is through audio files of patients historys. We interject the historys, talking about the differential diagnosis, and other interesting points such as diagnositc criteria.