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The Professional and Linguistic Assessments Board examination is a prerequisite in order to get temporary registration with the GMC, general medical council, in the U.K.; one cannot work in the U.K. without a medical registration.

Foreign graduates such as Indians need to have cleared an English test called the IELTS, International English Language Testing System, in order to apply for PLAB exam dates.

This site will provide you with basic info such as syllabus for the exam, dates available in India, fees, recommended reading, best pubs in London (kidding!!) etc.

Keep in mind that it is PLAB that you need to have passed to work in most areas of Ireland, Scotland or Wales.


INGREDIENTS FOR YOUR PLAB

 

This is a listing of all that you need at hand to successfully attack the PLAB monster. I'm trying to put this array down in a sort of chronological order; meaning that you might find it useful to tick things off in the order that they appear on this list.
  1. PASSPORT: You need your passport as form of personal identification in order to make the IELTS application. The British Council, which conducts this exam, does not accept any other form of identification, for reasons best known to them. And as mentioned on the home page, till you get the IELTS scores, you cant apply for PLAB. Its a conspiracy.
  2. FINANCES: The current going rate for the IELTS exam, just the fees, is Rs. 4500. The fees for part I of PLAB is 265 pounds sterling. Thats a little less than Rs. 18,000/- at current rates. The part II PLAB costs you 150 pounds in fees. This would be close to Rs. 10,000/-.
    It falls to reason you need to have made arrangements for these monies before you go ahead with the exam.
  3. VERIFY VENUES AND DATES: we've provided some of this information on our site here. You'll need to figure out what city and month suit your convenience the best and decide to apply accordingly, both for the IELTS first and then the PLAB.
  4. GMC CLEARANCE: The GMC makes it a point to tell you, please contact us and verify that your medical qualifications are good enough for you to write the PLAB exam. This is more or less a CYA stance (cover your ass). Never mind. Issue is, if your IELTS things are on course, make sure that you contact the GMC and crosscheck with them before you shell out good money for your PLAB application. Unless of course, you passed out from some really well accredited place like St.Johns, or Vellore or MAMC or AFMC. We're not so sure about AIIMS.
  5. AND OF COURSE BASIC INGREDIENTS: Have enough copies of all the usual stuff like marks cards, internship rotation details, photographs, degree certificates, rustication memos etc.

PRESENT PLAB part one FORMAT


Well, as is customary, lemme give you the good news first. In days bygone, many illustrious studs and students (stud and student have recently been approved as the male and female gender equivalents of the word pupil; it has been suggested that this has much to do with the general conduct of the male medico undergrads in college); ah, to continue; many of our accomplished predecessors met their match at the PLAB exam due to those DREADED picture tests. well, the good news is that the picture tests are gone, maybe not gone for good, but at least, at THIS POINT IN TIME, the plab part one consists only of MCQs. yes! our beloved mcqs and more mcqs.

The exam is over 3 hours, and there are 200 questions. Its more or less like the mcq exams we are used to, except that the focus is very clinically oriented; i shall just attach below a couple of examples from the PLAB booklet. this should give you some idea.

OPTIONS:
  1. blood cultures
  2. blood glucose
  3. chest x ray
  4. CT scan head
  5. ECG
  6. full blood count
  7. midstream urine sample
  8. serum urea and electrolytes
  9. stool culture
  10. throid function tests
INSTRUCTIONS (this is the question)

For each patient described below, choose the single most discriminating investigation from the above list of options. Each option may be used once, more than once or not at all.
  1. An 84 yr old woman in a nursing home has been constipated for a week. Over the past few days she has become increasingly confused and incontinent.
  2. A previously well 78 yr old woman has been noticed by her daughter to be increasingly slow and forgetful over several months. She has gained weight and tends to stay indoors with the heating on even in warm weather.
  3. A 64 yr old man has recently been started on tablets by his g.p.(general practitioner). He is brought to the A & E (accidents and emergency; synonym for what we term 'casualty') by his wife with sudden onset of aggressive behaviour, confusion and drowsiness. Prior to starting the tablets he was losing weight and complaining of thirst.
  4. A frail 85 yr old woman with poor mobility and a recent history of falls. She has deteriorated gradually over the past 2 weeks with fluctuating confusion. On examination she has a mild right hemiparesis.
  5. A 75 yr old man with known Alzheimers disease became suddenly more confused yesterday. When seen in the A & E dept., his BP was 90/60 and his pulse rate was 40 bpm regular.


Heres another example.

OPTIONS:
  1. Bacteriodes fragilis
  2. Coxiella burnetii
  3. E. coli (gram negative)
  4. H. influenzae
  5. Legionella pneumophila
  6. mixed growth of organisms
  7. M. tuberculosis
  8. Mycoplasma pneumoniae
  9. Pneumocystis carinii
  10. S. aureus


INSTRUCTIONS:
  1. A 25 year old man has a three day history of shivering, geneeral malaise and productive cough. The x-ray shows right lower lobe consolidation.
  2. A 26 yr old man presents with sevee shortness of breath and dry cough which he has had for 24 hours. He is very distressed. He has been an IV drug user. The Xray shows perihilar fine mottling.
  3. A 35 yr old previously healthy man returned from holiday 5 days ago. He smokes 10 cigarettes a day. He presents with mild confusion, a dry cough and marked pyrexia. His chest examination is normal. The xray shows widespread upper zone shadowing.
  4. A 20 yr old previously healthy woman presents with general malaise, severe cough and breathlessness which has not improved with a 7 day course of amoxicillin. There is nothing to significant to find on examination. The xray shows patchy shadowing thru out the lung fields. The blood film shows clumping of red cells with suggestion of cold agglutinins.


There. that should give yall a good idea what the questions are like. now all that remains for you to do is mug up your stuff!

I shall just mention a short list of the syllabus. This is just as given in the GMC booklet for PLAB, but note that they very clearly intend this list only as a guide, and that "OTHER SIMILAR CONDITIONS MIGHT APPEAR IN THE EXAMINATION"


SORT-OF SYLLABUS FOR THE PLAB EXAM.
  1. ACCIDENT and EMERGENCY MEDICINE (to include trauma and burns)
  2. BLOOD (to include coagulation defects)
  3. CARDIOVASCULAR SYSTEM (to include heart and blood vessels and blood pressure)
  4. DERMATOLOGY, IMMUNOLOGY, ALLERGY and INFECTIOUS DISEASES
  5. ENT and EYES
  6. GASTROINTESTINAL TRACT, LIVER and BILIARY SYSTEM, and NUTRITION
  7. METABOLISM, ENDOCRINOLOGY and DIABETES
  8. NERVOUS SYSTEM (both medical and surgical)
  9. ORTHOPAEDICS and RHEUMATOLOGY
  10. PSYCHIATRY (to include substance abuse)
  11. RENAL SYSTEM (to include urinary tract and genitourinary medicine)
  12. REPRODUCTIVE SYSTEM (to include obstetrics, gynecology and breast)
  13. RESPIRATORY SYSTEM
  14. DISORDERS OF CHILDHOOD (to include non-accidental injury and child sexual abuse; fetal medicine; growth and devt.)
  15. DISORDERS OF THE ELDERLY (to include palliative care)
  16. PERI-OPERATIVE MANAGEMENT

Note that there is NO negative marking.

Well. I think thats about as much info as i can provide at the moment, should stand you in good stead i hope. do take a look at the 2 parallel pages in this section, one regarding the ideas in the GMCs head when they set the paper, and the second, our own views on the matter!



WHAT THE GMC WANTS you TO KNOW


This is basically some info culled from the PLAB booklet of the GMC, to give you an idea of what concepts the exam is based on.

The examination assesses the ability to apply knowledge to the care of patients.

The emphasis of the exam is on clinical management and includes science as applied to clinical problems. It is confined to core knowledge, skills and attitudes relating to conditions commonly seen by SHOs, to the generic management of life-threatening situations and to rarer, but important, problems.

Some questions relate to current best practice. They should be answered in relation to published evidence and not according to your local arrangements. If necessary, you should take steps to familiarise yourself with the range of equipment routinely available in teaching hospitals.

There is no set pass rate for the exam.

There is no limit to the number of times that you may take part 1, but you need a valid IELTS report form to apply each time (The IELTS report is valid for 2 years from date of passing).

You may have 4 attempts at part 2, which must be within 2 years of your part 1 pass. If you do not pass at the 4th attempt, you have to start all over again from IELTS and then part 1.

TIPS

To begin with. The plab exam is very clinical. so forget all the desi style qns about the number of structures with length 25 cm, and the distance from the meatus to the verumontanum, and the number of kids to stand around in a circle for ring immunisation (just kidding; but hey, you get my point!).

The syllabus given on the previous (GMC) page seems sometimes more of a hindrance than a help. Trust the British to organise a syllabus alphabetically rather than in subject priority. oh well. we all have our failings.

I personally have yet to detect any in myself, and i suppose thats mine then.
So to carry on. The syllabus is basically all the clinical subjects. That means, MED SURG OB-GYN, ORTHO PEDS, ENT OPHTH, DERMAT PSYCH ANESTH RADIO; now, im not sure where comm med (PSM) fits into this scheme of things; i daresay the comm med type questions will appear under the head of epidemiology, within medicine itself.

The important point here, however, is that, rather than focussing on the syllabus as such, you need to be aware that there are certain specific books that one is expected to read for PLAB. The first of these is the OXFORD HANDBOOK OF CLINICAL MEDICINE, often abbreviated as OHCM. You also need to know the OXFORD HANDBOOK OF CLINICAL SPECIALTIES, OHCS. These two books touch upon the entire spectrum of the PLAB syllabus. I strongly recommend that you read them both, especially the OHCM, not just from the PLAB point of view, but also because they are EXTREMELY practical; they are written, and written well, with exactly us in mind; the junior doctor who is scratching his/her relevant area, to figure out, "DAMMIT, WHAT SHALL I DO/ TELL THE PATIENT/ NOT DO ??" I found the recommendations for sex after an M.I. particularly appealing (OHCM). Check it out!

As for further reading; well, on the whole, I think it will suffice if you go thru whichever text for all the other specialties that you are familiar with, and revise; although TEN TEACHERS for OB and TEN TEACHERS for GYN are highly recommended for PLAB. I went thru both, and found the OB one particularly useful.

When youre done with all this, or while youre doing all this, you need to go thru a good number of mcqs of the format that i have mentioned earlier. Where can you find such questions? Hmm. thats a tricky one. If I had my way and had lots of rich sponsors, well, you would have been able to find all the mcqs you needed for plab and mle on this site itself. in a perfect world. but well, time. 'time is on my side' (thats a line from a movie called FALLEN, a brilliant role by denzelboy.) anyhow. for the time being, youre on your own for the qns. i recommend the many USMLE books, as well as the PRE TEST series aimed at PLAB.

NUMBERS AND ADDRESSES FOR PLAB AND IELTS CORRESPONDENCE/ ENQUIRIES

The numbers/ addresses/ people to contact for help regarding PLAB or IELTS are one and the same, these being the designated office bearers of the British Council branches all over the country.
MADRAS/ CHENNAI: tel: 044-8525002, fax 8523234
E mail: [email protected]
DELHI: tel: 011-3711401,2,3. fax: 3710717
E mail: [email protected]
BOMBAY/MUMBAI: tel: 022-2823560; fax: 2852024
E mail: [email protected]
CALCUTTA: tel: 033-2825947 fax: 2824804;
E mail: [email protected]

The IELTS website is www.ielts.org, that of the GMC is www.gmc-uk.org

You can e mail the gmc for registration at [email protected]
and e mail them for clarifications at [email protected]

 

 

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