ASK DOCTOR CLARKE Medicine review (part 2)

I attended the 16-hour "Medicine for Finals" review session by Dr. Clarke in mid-January, which was a two-day course sponsored by the British Medical Association. If you read my previous post, you will know that I was pretty excited about attending Dr Clarke's review. In my opinion any person who tries to review all of medicine in one day has to be a bit crazy. They also have to be pretty good at what they do in order to pull it off. The following few paragraphs is my personal review of his course. However, I have left out the surgery review. GAB will probably do that soon, and it will be published shortly (we have finals coming up so don't hold your breath).

I arrived to St. James hospital around 8:45 a.m. and was greeted by Dr. Clarke and a representative from the BMA. Dr. Clarke's goatee in real life is just as cool as the cartoon one on his website. I also have to say for completeness that Dr. Clarke is much thinner in person (his web caricature does him no justice). Upon arrival, I was then given a red hat pin for neurological exams, a free orange pen from the BMA, a booklet covering the days lecture which contained extra reading to supplement his power point lectures. He also provided coffee. It was the coffee in the morning that made me think the following three things:

1. This guy knows his medical students. Coffee in the morning even though we paid for the course was a total unexpected surprise.

2. Aside from the bonus coffee, we also received a medicine and a surgery booklet. The books cover his lectures word for word. This was nice to have during the lecture, because I was never worried about writing anything down. I have since sat down and reread a lot his notes with great recall. His book also contained extra notes on topics that we might not have totally covered in his lectures. Now that Dr. Clarke is back in England, I can happily report that I stole an extra three hat pins as well.

Come get me, SUCKA!

I know I know, Pitiful. Anyway ... Finally I thought:

3. It was going to be hard not to outwardly show my platonic love for Dr Clarke over the next 48 hours without embarrassing myself, Dr. Clarke and my medical school.

The syllabus was refreshingly simple. For the final med student interested in reviewing as much as possible in as little time as possible, he was as Shaft would say, "Right on."






The topics and time table were as follows:

9:30 Cardio
11:20 Renal Med
12:00 Neuro
13:45 Neuro 2
14:15 Rheumatology
15:20 Diabetes
15:50 Endo and finally Resp

Coffee breaks and lunch were put in between. Before each section we usually took a quiz on the topics we were about to cover. The quizzes gave you a no BS assessment of what you did not know. They also helped you focus on what you needed to pay attention to in the coming portion of the lecture.

Without giving away all his secrets, I will say that his teaching style is interactive to say the very least. He uses various methods to reinforce your memory of certain topics. He uses a combination of patient videos, power points, quizzes, lecture booklets and various ridiculous hand gestures to teach you in a high yield fashion what is essential to know for finals. I swear you will never forget Hyperkalemia (if you went to his course you know what I mean). He also got the entire class involved to remember Murmurs. It's pretty hilarious when you have a room full of final medical students yelling "Lub De Drrrrrrrr!"

So, overall I believe the course was well worth it. If you asked me in one word I would say "illuminating." The concepts you might not have understood or ones that really never quite got in medical school were explained simply, with ease and in a memorable way. This is not a course where you are just given more lists to memorize. You will remember concepts, and as a result, the lists will come to you. I know it sounds hokey but trust me, it's true.

A few weeks before my written exam and a few months before my orals, I have a much better grasp of what to cover and how to cover it. Throughout the day, he also reviewed materials covered last year in medical schools, because students emailed him what they had on their exams. I plan to email Doc Clarke when I finish my exams as well.

Topics Covered: A+
Cartoon Goatee: B+
Real Goatee: B-
Revision workbook: A+

Overall score: A+ with distinction

I also just attended the MPS finals revision and when I have time I will write something up. If you are curious in the mean time you can email me EducatedNobody@gmail.com

I'm Out

BJM