Helping with FRACP exams

Today Raphael and I went to the hospital, as requested, to volunteer as guinea-pigs for paediatric doctor candidates to examine as part of their tests to become paediatricians.

It was very interesting to see how these candidates questioned me and examined Raphael to try to obtain a full description of Raphael's condition and our family situation. More specifically it was educational for me to hear the areas that paediatricians need to cover in an initial consultation.

Raphael was classified as a long case and this meant that he was only able to be examined by the examiners and two candidates in the morning that he was there. The examiners asked us to be as helpful as possible and as forthcoming as we could be with regards to my son's condition; but when I brought out my medical summary, the examiners kindly and respectfully asked to have a look and then requested that I put it away and allow themselves and the candidates to conduct the interview and examination without referring to the documentation that I had brought with me. They suggested that it would not be helpful to the testing process if the candidates all came out of this examination with (effectively) a copy of the information that I had pre-prepared rather than teasing the information out my memory at the time. I always rely on notes to recall my memory to Raphael's condition so it was a real challenge for me to be able to describe my son's condition without my notes.

It would be nice to know how the two candidates went that examined Raphael today but I suspect that information is confidential and I won't find out. However, afterwards I spoke to a registrar who said that parents generally have a good idea as to whether a candidate would pass a particular examination or not, based on how well we thought the student got all of the information out of the parent.