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* What is the format of the oral exam?
* What qualities are the examiners looking for?
* How should you prepare for the orals?
MIKE THIRLWALL FRCGP, GP, Aylesbury, and Convenor of the Oral Module
The oral examination is intended to assess candidates' decision- making skills - that is, their professional judgement. The questions are frequently founded on dilemmas in practice, which are then examined in a series of further questions designed to challenge and explore the candidate's approach to practice. The examiners will be looking for pragmatic and consistent decision-making based soundly on ethical principles and evidence.
Candidates will have two twenty-minute orals, with two pairs of examiners. None of the examiners knows how the candidate has performed in the other parts of the examination, nor whether they have sat the oral before. The pair of examiners conducting the second oral will have no idea of how the candidate fared in the first one.
* The structure of the oral examination At the start of the day, the four examiners who will be working together for that session plan the two orals. They use a grid constructed from the three areas of competence on which the oral focuses (communication, professional values, and personal and professional growth) in four contexts (care of patients, working with colleagues, society, and personal responsibility) (see table 1).
They select questions for each 'box', aiming to ask about five topics in each oral in such a way that each area and context will be tested at least once. The questions will have been pre-planned by each examiner with a marking scale to rate candidates' responses on a nine-point scale.
* Area and context It may help to expand on what is meant by each 'area' and 'context'. First, the three areas:
* Communication This includes the principles of verbal and non- verbal communication, consultation models (you would be well advised to be familiar with at least one of those in common use in teaching about British general practice), effective information transfer, motivation, empathy and listening.
* Professional values Candidates are required to demonstrate an understanding of moral and ethical principles, patient autonomy, medico-legal issues; show flexibility and tolerance of colleagues and patients alike, and be aware of the...