SURGICAL FINALS Passing the Clinical - PasTest

PR E FACEHistory and examination are essential parts of clinical practice andkey elements in medical training, requiring constant supervision andevaluation. The assessment of these skills is therefore a mandatoryrequirement of every medical school. The form of this assessment varies:continuous assessment is common, and desirable, with constructivefeedback, to ensure that students are developing appropriate skills.As students approach their summative assessments and finalexaminations, however, examiners have a responsibility to ensure thatcandidates are competent to progress independently and that patientsafety is assured. Although symptoms and signs and their clinicalinterpretation do not change markedly, their forms of assessment haveevolved into structured, consistent, reliable and measurable methods,ensuring that specific skills are examined and achieved by everysuccessful candidate.The primary aim of this text is to reduce the chances of failure in theclinical part of surgical finals. This is by encompassing the core knowledgeand skills needed to pass finals, and providing a reliable and safeapproach to patients and their surgical problems; it also addresses therequirements of the various forms of assessment that are in current use.Student as well as staff involvement in the initiation and development ofthe first and subsequent editions has retained a close link to teaching andassessment methods, and most importantly to clinical practice.The text takes the candidate through the clinical history and examinationof frequently encountered surgical conditions and common written orverbal questions that are added to manned or unmanned examinationstations. The emphasis is surgical and topics more pertinent to medicalspecialities, such as cardiac, respiratory, neurology, dermatology andpsychiatry, are not included. For these and other aspects of finals, consultthe companion Medical, OSCE and EMQ volumes.We hope that the continued popularity of the text reflects its close link tothe examination systems across the UK and reader’s success in his or hersurgical finals.vii