Primary exams experience

 So I've just finished up with the last viva for the primary exams this year. I thought I'd jot down a few thoughts about the journey while I'm here. 

 -This year the exams were online which is the first time this has happened. I didn't experience any glitches or dropouts and the process was well organised and streamlined. I don't know how I would have done with a hand written exam as my hand writing is both slow and poorly legible. I found the typing to be a bonus. The program they used for the exams watched you through the webcam and would flag moments that your eyes were away from the screen or you were talking and this would be reviewed by the examiner during marking.

-On reflection, last year there were multiple factors that led to my resignation of the exams. Firstly I hadn't paid for them so was studying for the exams without the obligation of actually being locked into doing them. Although I could maintain a heavy level of study, ultimately it gave the ability to quit and I took that opportunity. Secondly I was too stressed about doing well: The primary exams are marked and only a pass/fail is given other than the highest aggregate mark which receives an award. Call it the competitive side in me but I was going too hard with the study and over stressing about the result and so had a degree of burnout. 

-This year was much different in that I decided to register for the exams, didn't worry about the result and as a result was much more able to have a balanced approach of the study and exams.

-The exams themselves went over two weeks with the Monday-Wednesday the first week being the written exams with 2 two hour papers a day for three days and the second week Wednesday-Friday were the vivas with 2 ten minute vivas per day.

-I think I have been studying pretty much every night after work and on Saturdays for the past 4-5 months. Looking at the content and difficulty of the exams I definitely think this was still overboard not that I regret doing it. I am a chronic over preparer in many aspects of life. A coworker decided to start studying for the exams a month ago but in hind sight I think that is quite possible for some though I wouldn't attempt it myself.

-I completely changed my study technique around for these exams. Last year I adopted my classic "shotgun" approach where I pretty much researched and burrowed into each an every topic mentioned in the lecture slides and went above and beyond with the study. I did this in uni and although theoretically this is the ideal way to study in terms of learning about the subject, it's not taking into account being realistic about the system of learning. In the end they will test what is taught and all that extra work goes unrewarded and distracts you from the relevant content. In contrast, this time around I started with the past papers as a focus. This is something I would recommend. I then went through the lecture content with the past papers in mind and answered the past paper questions on the first run through rather than at the end. Many past paper questions are repeated and even if they aren't, the topics examined in the past are probably the ones that should be focused on. I looked at some microbiology notes I wrote up last year and the document was 300 pages long. I binned all that work and started again and it turned out this year to a more palateable 100 pages. Even then, I don't think I really looked at these again and eventually ended up just looking through the lecture slides which were sufficient.

-The primary exams aren't really a practice changing experience. They are a way for you to meet the minimum requirements for entering a specialist program, they are good for refreshing the basic sciences that underlie your dental practice (something which I can appreciate) and it does help a lot with the taking of a medical history (which is vital to understand the rationale for)

Finishing this obligation is good I suppose. I guess there are mixed feelings, a sort of familiar feeling that takes me back to post uni exams when you had been studying for so long that you're unsure what to do with yourself after. It will be good to have some more time to focus on other improvements in my career, making some more blog posts and focusing on other aspects of my life which have changed dramatically since starting the journey of these exams. I will wait and see what the future holds for me from here on out.