FRCR P2A. 16 weeks to go.

A little breather…

A weekend in Surrey. The kids were on a hunt to find the Magical Faraway Tree. And they found it.

Everytime we go to David’s parents’ house, we realise how much the kids have grown. We can now walk up and down the hills with not much of a problem. And now that it is getting warmer, we look forward to more outdoor activity.

And back to regular programming…

As I have learnt, I am not capable of training for a race and revise for exams at the same time. I’ve tried doing it before and predictably, sub-par results.

Quick recap. It has taken me 4 attempts to pass FRCR Part 1 Physics (yes, that is permanently tattooed in my ego). Then 5 minutes after finding out that I passed, I dropped £576 and signed up for the FRCR Part 2A at the end of August – 16 weeks from now. And because I wanted to make myself feel better, I ran the Paris Marathon. Now that chapter is finally over. We move on.

However, I still couldn’t switch my brain on to start revising for the next one. So what do I do next? I signed up for not one, but two revision courses! The Leeds Revision Course for Part 2A (£300) and The Cardiff Revision Course for Part 2B (£880)! Note: I haven’t even passed 2A yet! The moment my place was confirmed for both courses, my brain still did not turn on.

But why? I thought about it long and hard… it is because I think about these exams the same way as I think about the Boston Marathon…

Exactly how am I going to get there?!

I see these exams as big mountains to climb – learning almost all of Oncology – all tumour sites, all of the appropriate investigations, the different tumour sizes, number of lymph nodes, and appropriate treatments both systemic and local – radiotherapy. Imagine how anxiety-inducing that is? Then, slowly unbinding myself from my own tortuous thoughts… I snapped of it.

Instead of thinking about it like my Everest or my Boston, I need to take one step at a time. Walk before run. One topic at a time. One day at a time.

Train smart. Really work hard on being consistent… on being consistent.

So… The Plan.

Sleep and join The 4 AM Club. I know that I cannot revise when I get home from work. I would have driven for almost an hour and immediately switch to Mummy mode when I pick the kids up from Afterschool Club. Followed by dinner, bedtime routine and stories, and mostly just managing a show on the tele with David. So, a little change in habit is get ready for bed at 9pm and be asleep by 930pm. For the purpose of waking up at 4am to revise for 2 hours! Yes that’s right… 4 AM. Absolute madness. But… 2 uninterrupted hours with a rested brain, daily. (Feedback so far… this has only been interrupted when I was On-Call overnight).

The Big Topics. When I signed up, I had about 6 weeks until the Leeds Course (1st-5th of June). Learning from the past, there is nothing worse than going to a revision course unprepared and not seeing the material first. So I have given myself 6 days each for the big topics (Resp, Uro, H+N, Gynae, Breast, LGI) before the 1st of June! I won’t cover it all but at least I would have seen it.

Revision Slides. In the past, I always just read the material then do questions. This time, I am preparing revision slides for me to present to myself. I figure that if I can verbalise it, it may stick better.

Revision Group. There are 8 of us who are sitting the exam. A one hour revision session has already been set up for Saturday mornings at 9-10 am. Perfect… the kids are at tennis for that hour! Revision at the Tennis Centre.

Bridging the Gap. Having taken a long time to get through Part 1, it gave me a chance to go through more clinical rotations and the only big topic one that I am missing is Head and Neck. The MSc Oncology Part B, which I’ve just started in March is bridging the gap as it was the first module we covered in March. And I have just rotated on to Gynae-Onc. So I may just be okay. Fingers crossed.

My Clinical Oncology Training Programme Director, who also runs marathons, said…