MRCP PACES new station 5

By Hannah Brown in MRCP PACES on Monday, May 18, 2009 @ 11:18

Causing all sorts of problems with the 2009(02) applications (it seems everyone wants to get PACES out of the way before its introduction) the new station 5 will be introduced for the 2009(03) diet.  Seen as a 'pilot' by many, courses are sure to be oversubscribed as candidates struggle to know how to approach the new station without updated textbooks and their peers' advice.

The current station 5 hasn't been without its problems though - given the limited conditions that could be examined in an 'open' station it has been easy to guess the cases that would be tested and only revise those.  Great for candidates, not so great for examiners and the Royal College of Physicians.

The thing is, candidates shouldn't really be panicking about the new station, because it's only testing areas that they're already covering when preparing for the other stations.

Station 5: Integrated clinical assessment
Format: Two cases, lasting 10 minutes each
What they're testing: Focused history, relevant examination, problem solving, communication
System examined: Any system
Time with patient: 8 mins
Time with examiner: 2 mins

So, all they're asking you to do is use skills that you'll need to apply in the other four stations and demonstrate that you can pull them all together, exactly as you would do in a day-to-day patient encounter - see nothing to panic about at all!

The RCP will be releasing more information about the changes in June, and in the meantime we're working hard on updating PacesCases to make sure we're ready for the changes too!