MRCPsych Courses (UK)

Royal College of Psychiatrists South West Division CASC Course

Bristol

This course is being held in collaboration with Dr Sabari Muthukrishnan, and will follow the formula of his highly successful CASC Exam Practice Course.

We can accommodate only 16 candidates. This is to ensure good quality feedback to candidates and give individual attention to each candidate. Candidates will be able to have individual sessions with the examiners to discuss their strengths and areas of improvement.

Places are strictly on a first come first served basis.

We will provide telephone and email support after the course until the day before the candidate's Royal College CASC Exam.

Full information and an application form can be obtained from:  http://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/members/divisions/southwest/casccourse.aspx

PsychInterview

Online

Psych Interview is a unique online course that combines psychiatric interview skills training, knowledge and practice all in one concept, whilst showing you exactly how to pass the MRCPsych CASC through a set of proven techniques.

The interview skills component (knows how) consists of 31 video interviews by a Consultant Psychiatrist with firsthand experience of MRCPsych and FRANZCP exam. All stations are developed from previous CASC and OSCE exams with varying degrees of complexity, helping you not only to pass the exam but also to excel in clinical practice. Over 7 hours of pure video material shows you how to approach each case; be it history taking, consultancy type questions, explanation of a condition, or managing a difficult condition.

The knowledge component (knows) is imparted through buzzwords and downloadable evidence based lecture notes that supplement each scenario, providing clear and easy to follow guidance.

The third component is practice (shows how and does). Psych Interview offers you the ability to view the videos as many times as you want and rehearse the techniques in your own time. You can even revise on the go on your iPhone or iPad.

It is its ability to cover all these three components that makes Psych Interview such a beneficial and valuable tool for your CASC preparation. This online concept offers you the true opportunity to improve psychiatric interviewing skills, delivery of content, and gestures through modelling and rehearsal – an area where courses often fall short due to limited time for individual practice and feedback. Psych Interview shows you the techniques that are proven to work."

CASC Exam Practice

Bristol/ Southampton

"CASC EXAM PRACTICE COURSE is an intensive weekend course held in Bristol and Southampton. On Saturday, the candidates will have extensive tutorials and discussion on all the possible scenarios of the CASC exam. They can also bring complex stations to discuss with the examiners. There will be a separate tutorial for Forensic Psychiatry and 'CRACK the CASC' lecture.

On Sunday, the candidates will do a mock CASC exam. Each candidate will perform 16 stations in two circuits of linked and individual stations under exam conditions. They will get individual written and verbal feedback from experienced examiners and the professional actors. The candidates will also attend interview skills workshop and physical examination workshop.

Each candidate will perform 21 to 24 linked and individual stations and will observe other candidates perform an equal number of stations. The candidates will also observe an examiner performing difficult and complex stations.
Pilot stations and the previous CASC stations from the 2008, 2009, and 2010 diets will be included. The candidates will get course materials which include comprehensive information and useful exam tips for 100 linked and individual stations.

We can accommodate only 16 candidates in each location to ensure good quality feedback to candidates and give individual attention to each candidate. Candidates will be able to have individual sessions with the examiners to discuss their strengths and areas of improvement. We will provide telephone and email support after the course until the day before the candidate's CASC Exam."

To book a place: Email: cascexampracticecourse@yahoo.co.uk

The course organisers of CASCEXAMPRACTICECOURSE are pleased to inform that we are now organising the course this year for the Royal College of Psychiatrists South West Division in the Bristol area. You can contact them on  jgregory@southwestdiv.rcpsych.ac.uk to book a place in the course.

SPMM MRCPsych Exam Courses

London

"The CASC course is a two-day intensive course aiming to cover 80 Scenarios (Simple and Paired stations) with extensive opportunity for candidates to practise under strict exam conditions with professional role players and experienced examiners. Each candidate will perform 16-18 stations and will observe 54-56 more. Oral and written feedback will be provided. Comprehensive course materials for more than 105 stations are included. Most CASC stations from spring & autumn 2008 and Spring 2009 Exams will be covered.."

"All 3 written papers are comprehensive weekend revision courses focussing on exam related topics. Both BOFs (Best of five answers) and EMIs will be dealt with in detail with the involvement of experienced tutors. Each and every question will be solved using power point slides followed by clear explanation & teaching. The course materials are peer-reviewed and thoroughly referenced. Previous Royal College exam questions from Spring 08, autumn 08 and spring 09 are also included in all the three written paper courses. Our paper 3 course timetable allocates nearly one full day for critical appraisal, which is the hard bit for candidates to get through."

All CASC and written courses include access to online courses.

Contact Details: (07816) 908158; spmmcourse@googlemail.com.

The Manchester Course

Manchester

Papers 1, 2 & 3: "The courses provides a comprehensive review of knowledge required for the exam. Teaching for the multiple choice question/ extended matching item paper is based on college questions collected by the course organisers over the last several years, subdivided into clinical specialities. Detailed explanatory handouts accompany the lectures. A mock exam completes your written paper preparation."

COMPASS PsyCare: Weekend Interview Skills Course for the MRCPsych CASC

London

"This course is not a weekend assembly line OSCE practice. There are many courses out there that will let you do that. You can practice with your friends and family free of charge, but without being totally comfortable in the basics of interview, you may be practising the wrong skills. Remember how never to learn driving by mimicking your dad? You only pick up what is bad! This course is not all about practising OSCEs although you will get plenty opportunity to do exactly that under examination conditions. All the actors have experience in doing role-play for CASC and GMC performance review OSCEs.

"At the end of day one, you will feel more confident in approaching the CASC component of the MRCPsych exam. At the end of day 2, you will definitely be more confident of the real CASC exam. You will also leave with a complimentary copy of a leading book on psychiatric assessment, and a DVD of your performance in each of the 16 stations will be in post. You will receive oral feedback on general matters on the day, and will receive detailed written feedback (with suggestions for improvement) within the week. You will also receive web links (secure) to access further training videos for those last moment practice."

PASSAPPRAISAL Course

London

"Passappraisal (PAL) is a two-day intensive training course on statistics and critical appraisal purpose-built for your MRCPsych exam. The aim of this course is to present the core concepts which never get taught in a one-to-one fashion for the candidates. Self-learning from books and materials may work for some but not all learners. PAL uses a time-tested and highly successful method of teaching close to personal tuition.  This is possible as we limit places to just 25 candidates.

The important topics covered will include basic and advanced statistics, study designs and research methodology, appraisal techniques, figures and graphs in statistics and applied evidence based medicine. In addition to this, we will give all candidates free access to nearly 300 online MCQs and EMIs with explanations on our site www.passappraisal.com. Our website also contains printable pdf handouts explaining high yield concepts in statistics required for MRCPsych.

If you are not among the 25 candidates to secure a place in the residential course, don’t worry – you can still have access to the question bank and printable pdf handouts for a small cost (£29.99).

Neuroanatomy for Psychiatry

London

"This special one-day programme provides a clear and focused review of functional neuroanatomy with particular emphasis on key structures and systems of relevance to psychiatric practice.

Following a refresher of normal brain development, anatomy and neurochemistry, the topography and functional areas of the cerebral cortex are considered in detail, correlating functional anatomy with common neurological and psychiatric syndromes.

The concept of the limbic system is then considered and its key components (including the basal forebrain and substantia innominata) are discussed - before moving on to look at the functional organisation of the basal ganglia and their relevance to neuropsychiatric disease, including the parallel cognitive, motor and affective loops that form the interface between thought, emotion and action.

The most recent course (Jan 2009) had mean feedback scores of 4.5/5.0"

Newcastle Course

Newcastle

"The Newcastle Course is designed to assist candidates in preparation for the CASC paper of the MRCPsych exam. This intensive course has been developed with the aim of providing candidates with a mock exam experience as well as exposure to 32 different single and paired stations.
The course is run in a purpose built exam centre; uses professional actors; and experienced assessors. We focus on providing high quality feedback to candidates from a variety of sources including college examiners."

"There is also available an optional second day providing intensive feedback and additional coaching in small groups. This optional second day is limited in numbers to maintain the low numbers of candidates per tutor."

eMRCPsych

Leicester

A two-day course "providing training for the CASC in the exam format by experienced examiners and actors." Day one focuses on 'generic' single and linked stations, and day two focuses on 'specialty' single and linked stations. "Highlights include: Consultant led, including Royal College Examiners; Detailed written feedback for every station; Revised and updated stations; Small groups (not more than 4); and a full mock exam."

Maximum 24 places.

Early Bird Discount: Course fee £350 before 15/8/09.

The Oxford OSCE/ MRCPsych Course

Oxford

"Oxford Psych course is an exam oriented intense weekend revision course conducted in Oxford. The pass rate for our candidates who appeared in the Autumn ’07 MRCPsych part 1 OSCE is 96% & MRCPsych part II Clinicals is 98%. Candidates from Hongkong, Singapore, UK, and Ireland who attended the recent CASC Course have given excellent feedback about our course after attending their exams. We are continuing to help candidates pass their Royal College exams. Our Paper I, Paper II, Paper III and the CASC courses are specially designed for the new format of MRCPsych exams conducted by the Royal College of Psychiatrists.

The Oxfordpsych Paper 3 weekend course has been redesigned and examiners who actually were involved in setting up the Royal College Paper 3 critical appraisal questions would be teaching on the first day of the Paper 3 Course. We shall cover the individual specialities on Day2 of the Paper3 course. Our course material and questions are based on the recently held/past Royal college exams.

The OxfordPsych CASC Course is a weekend course designed primarily on the new CASC format using Royal college Examiners &professional role play actors who take part in the actual exams. We would be covering both individual and paired stations in our CASC Course to be held in Oct.

NEW! We have started streaming videos online showing single and paired stations. The stations were recorded in the Oxfordpsych CASC course May’08 and involve professional role players who actually took part in the CASC exam. Access to the videos is FREE!"

Courses are also available in Hong Kong:

The Cambridge Course

Cambridge

Although the course itself runs over 2 semesters, they offer a number of crash courses in the run up to the exam, spread over 1-2 days. Prices are reduced for local candidates (see website for details).

The lecture notes used on the course are also available on the website at no charge.

Contact details (for all the Cambridge MRCPsych courses) are:

Sarah Devereux (sarah.devereux@cpft.nhs.uk).
Tel: 01223 884 208 (Tuesdays & Thursdays)

Cambridge Statistics and Research Methods Crash Course

Cambridge

"This course will thoroughly prepare candidates for the Statistics and Research Methodology components of the MRCPsych Papers 2 and 3.  The course will teach General Research Methodology and all specific research types e.g. RCTs, health economics, aetiology, qualitative research etc.  After each mini topic there will be MCQ/ EMQ practice and discussion.  The course will cover all statistical tests that are likely to come up in the exam, e.g. Mann-Whitney, multiple regression, and discuss how to interpret them and answer questions on them.  The statistics will be scattered through the day, presented together with the relevant study design, to keep it in small doses!  Teaching will include essential calculations, e.g. NNT, sensitivity, specificity, likelihood ratio.  Candidates will have plenty of opportunities to practise them.  The course will conclude with MCQs and EMIQs that test knowledge across study designs, e.g. Which is the best statistical test to use in a specific situation?  What type of bias would occur in this situation?  Which is the most appropriate study design?

We will discuss more than 250 questions including MCQs and EMQs from the 2008 exams, the pilot exams, EMQs from previous exams, questions adapted from the old-style exam and questions written by the Cambridge team.  Full paper handouts will be given of questions; answers and explanations; and slides used to teach theoretical material.  Questions will be e-mailed to candidates before the course, so they can try them in advance if they so wish.

Sarah Devereux (sarah.devereux@cpft.nhs.uk).
Tel: 01223 884 208.

SPMM WPBA Course

London

"It is a one-day teaching course focusing on different work place based assessments (ACEs, mini-ACEs, Case-Based Discussion, Case presentation, Journal Club Presentation and Direct Observation of Procedural Skills) in psychiatry for trainees from ST1-3 level.

The course features input from experienced assessors and role players involved in Royal College Pilot assessments, with clear demonstration of different WPBAs.The course also features clinical assessment of cases, formulating case history, planning management options for common psychiatric cases and it aims to help the candidates perform WPBAs confidently in a wide variety of clinical settings.

Separate sessions for journal club presentation covering research methodology, basic statistics and application of EBM (evidence based medicine) will be covered in detail. Detailed course materials will be provided for all WPBAs."

Contact Details: (07816) 908158; drsreeprathap@hotmail.com.

The Birmingham Course Online

Online

The Birmingham Course stopped offering classroom-based courses in July 2009 and currently offer online courses only. They also provide online mock exams.

Cost is largely dependent on duration of subscription, and typical prices range from £69.99 (1 month) - £179.99 (6 months). Paper 3 mock exams (4 in total) are £39.

Superego-Cafe CASC Course

Manchester

"One day is spent practising OSCE stations (standalone and linked) in small groups with examiners and simulated patients. Each delegate will perform 4 standalone and one pair of linked stations, and will observe other delegates performing 16 standalone stations and 4 pairs of linked stations. Delegates receive constructive feedback on their performance in oral and written forms after every station."

"On the other day delegates participate in an interactive workshop on interview skills techniques and management plans for the linked stations. This will take the form of several standalone mini OSCE stations to illustrate the key points."

Superego Cafe will be running MRCPsych courses from May 2008 for Papers 1 and 2 and from July 2008 for Paper 3. Details for the written courses will be given below in due course.

Superego-Cafe Critical Appraisal Course

See Website

"We teach you everything you need to evaluate medical evidence. Critical appraisal is taught from first principles. We assume you have no prior knowledge. We use plain English to explain the meaning of research jargon."

The classroom course comes with a copy of 'The Doctor's Guide to Critical Appraisal' book, and online access to course materials for 2 months.

The course also comes in an online version and courses run in Hong Kong and Australia (early 2009 onwards).