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ANDY HENRY wrote 09-20-2010 12:28:08 am
Hi Todd,
Yea. would be great if you can prepare and upload some power point presentations (lectures) of core topics examined in the primary exams (SAQ / vivas). I know it is daunting but every effort that you guys make to help us (trainees) to advance, would be professionally rewarded. Something we can download and review at home as many times as possible, just like you have done on the clinical cases (presentations). Am preparing for the primary exams in feb/march 2011. Can you help? Pleeeeeeease. Andy

Todd Fraser wrote 09-20-2010 01:25:44 pm
Hi Andy,

Thanks for the vote of confidence, much appreciated.

There is clearly a need for more support for primary exam - lots more people are going via this route, so we're certainly aware of it. I hope to have something for you soon! Let me know what sorts of things you need and we can work on them.

ANDY HENRY wrote 09-20-2010 02:17:53 pm
Thanks Todd,
I don't know if this will help others as well. May be we could start by providing power point presentation of expected answers to the past CICM / JFCIM exam questions. I see you have loads of them (104) form my count. I guess, that would cover the entire primary course. Many thanks for helping us (trainees) out.
Cheers. Andy

ANDY HENRY wrote 09-24-2010 03:33:44 pm
Hi everyone preparing for the first part exams. I found a two week course here in Melbourne, organized by ANZCA Victoria regional office. It runs from 22 November till 03 december, 2011. Seats are limited with Victorian trainees giving priority. I have registered for the course and am looking forward to it. Let's go and get it done!

ANDY HENRY wrote 10-02-2010 06:54:56 am
Sorry guys. The ANZCA course runs from 22 November to 03 December, 2010. The registration is now closed as the course is fully subscribed.

Christopher Dugan wrote 08-14-2010 05:43:09 pm
Course?
Adelaide Primary Science Course, run by Mark Finnis

Where?
RACS building, Palmer Pl, Nth Adelaide (easy walk to the city)

When?
August. 2 courses per year until now, but only 1 course per year planned from now on, probably in August. Approx 12-16 places per course including both ANZCA + CICM primary candidates, ensures small group tutorial approach, with allowances made for differences between the two syllabi.

How long?
5 days Monday-Friday 9 am-5pm, regular 30-60min breaks for morning tea, lunch, afternoon tea. Lectures until 4pm then practice vivas 4-5pm.

How much?
$600 course fee includes morning + afternoon tea, lunch, bottomless coffee, endless chocolates/lollies + one informal course dinner on Thursday night (including an apparently "accidental" trip to the local Irish pub's Ladies Night)

Not included?
Airfares (if interstate, like me), Accommodation, other meals etc

What you get?
Valuable insights galore!! Mark's a very entertaining lecturer who doesn't aim to regurgitate the syllabus to you (impossible in a week) but can give you an excellent insight into the level of knowledge you need to pass (aim for breadth not depth). He can turn things around + inside out to make the hardest things seem simple.
Also get extremely valuable tips on how to approach written + viva questions from Mark (a former ANZCA examiner + current member of CICM Primary Exam Committee), other current CICM primary examiners (we had 2), RAH consultants + recently successfu

andrew stapleton wrote 08-16-2010 01:06:40 pm
Was above comment sponsored by Mark Finnis?
I went on this course and Mark is indeed a good lecturer and a general feeling of cosyness and reassurance emanates throughout. There is no substitue for practicing under exam conditions and the group therapy sessions are useful. It was good to see where the other candidates were at.
However I did not feel that I learnt anything that I didn't already know and overall I was disappointed. Too much time was spent trying to make us feel less terrified and not enough actually teaching. I failed the exam subsequently.
The course was free for me and I haven't recommended it to my NZ colleagues although on balance would tell them to go ias not paying.

Todd Fraser wrote 08-16-2010 03:01:02 pm
Thanks Andrew,

No, Mark Finnis had nothing to do with that message - I promise!

Its good to hear differing views here on Crit-IQ. The first part exam has been introduced, and there are, to this point, few courses aimed at preparing for it. This, in addition to the lack of history of the exam (ie few past papers and little experience to tap into) has made preparing very difficult.

Todd Fraser wrote 08-19-2010 06:17:49 pm
Chris Dugan suggested a site that may assist :
http://primarysaqs.wordpress.com/

Kristine ESTENSEN wrote 08-19-2010 10:24:51 pm
Hi All,

I am about to sit in 3 weeks time and it is very lonely indeed to go it alone. My approach has been the following:

1. Make contact with previous candidates who have sat exam and discuss - this was very helpful - not in Brisbane but via e-mail.
2. Tag onto the anaesthetic primary courses (long and short) and just omit the volatiles.
3. There is a great CICM/ Anaesthetics program at the Mater Hospital in Brisbane run by joint ICU/ Anaesthetics Thursday afternoons for basically the whole year- 2 pm to 4 pm. The co-ordinator is Dr Peter Scott - (Intensivist) - I basically e-mailed him a year ago, said who I was and asked if I could come. All are welcome. Unfortunately not videolinked etc. for those outsidfe Brisbane.
4. So between all of these courses I have had talks on the whole syllabus and certainly the Mater is great for understanding the depth you need for this exam.
5. The only down side is that none of it substitutes for your own individual study and hard-slog.....I ended up with 4 or 5 different printed noptes from all the lectures....but ultimately still had to do the work from textbooks/ my own study.
6. Short course run by Dr George Pang is invaluable, but the timing for CICM exam is kind of wrong. Course is in June and we dont sit until September. So CICM candidates havent covered everything, whilst the anaesthetics guys are 4 weeks off sitting so are a lot more "honed".
7. I have approached various intensivists to set me practice SAQs via e-mail,

Todd Fraser wrote 08-20-2010 03:04:19 pm
Nice one Kristine, some great info.

I have been thinking about this a lot and wonder if there is a better way. I think it shouldn't matter where you are (Cloncurry? Mt Isa?) you should be able to have access to resources that give you a reasonable chance of getting through the first part exam.

It also doesn't make sense that each centre does the same lecture series. Can't we somehow make it more efficient?

Is on-line lectures / podcasts / presentations etc something we could use? How can we use teleconferencing / online stuff to improve connectivity and efficiency? What ideas do you have for this?

DIANNE STEPHENS wrote 08-20-2010 06:47:43 pm
I have just signed up to the site as part of preliminary research for becoming a primary examiner. I have just downloaded the syllabus and I am observing the vivas in November. I thought I would get a few up to date textbooks but I found the list of recommended texts a little daunting. When I did the first part Anaesthesia (I am not ssaying how many years ago that was!) there were only a few textbooks you needed to work through. Are there a few on the list in the syllabus that most people work through? Once I have my examiner P plates happy to help out in an online fashion from Darwin.

Kristine ESTENSEN wrote 08-20-2010 10:41:05 pm
Hi Dr Fraser and Dr Stephens,

Yes it would be good if we could somehow "put it all together". The Intensivists and Anaesthetists give us access to their powerpoint presentations- but you still have to read widely. I love the idea of podcasts ands I believe that there is a UK website that has podcasts of practice vivas. Maybe this site could set up something similar.... I am not very techno-savvy so I dont have any other great ideas. The anaesthetic trainees reckon it is great for the viva preparation. I am going to visit it again after the written.

Dr Stephens comment about the textbook list is true. I have found there are certain "essentials" you just have to get and know (West, Nunn,Ganong, Power and Kam). Unforunately to cover the syllabus well you end up using 6 or 7 sources to get what seems to be a compreghensive and well rounded answer. This takes a lot of time....and tends to drive one slightly batty. Like trying to find the Pharmocokinetics of opiods in the spinal or epidural space...not really done well anywhere. When you read the examiners reports you realize that both breadth and enormous depth are required for a large number of topics. Also the issue is one of conflicting / inaccurate information for all sorts of things- particularly drugs. I have found some huge mistakes/ clear opposites for many things in the different textbooks ....what do I write in the exam for these ? It would be very useful to have a primary examiner willing to give i

Todd Fraser wrote 04-26-2011 06:08:24 pm
For those interested, Crit-IQ will soon be releasing some first part teaching tools, including primary question summaries, ideal answers, a bank of short fact questions and some viva videos.

Stay tuned...

Christopher Dugan wrote 08-27-2010 02:34:29 pm
Greeting from Newcastle.

At the risk of poking my head up + having it shot off, I'm sitting the CICM primary from an urban tertiary centre outside capital cities. 2/2 of my predecessors have done the same before me + passed (no pressure!). Spaced several years apart, they each latched onto the anaesthetic primary candidates and didn't let go: now I'm doing the same. I think Kristine's right- leave out the volatiles, add in a bit of micro + the topic material's pretty similar.

As you'll guess from my entry above, I recently found meeting Mark Finnis invaluable. Important points he made:
1. Most current CICM primary examiners are very experienced ex-ANZCA examiners
2. There's a huge amount of syllabus cross-over
3. A number of early candidates were grossly under-prepared
4. Syllabus/reading list is essentially twice as big as any other college primary exam
5. A number of early members of the Exam Committee have apparently now departed, so the syllabus + reading list may be in for a bit of a shake-up

I've been plodding along for ages now, trying to methodically answer the syllabus as I went, since Examiner's Reports implied most questions were simply lifted from the syllabus.

Have given up on that now + just moved to answering questions from Brandis' + Amanda Diaz's websites. Some errors, but I figure if I'm picking them up I must be doing something right!

From a textbook point of view I think Power + Kam, Wests, Nunns, Berne + Levy, Peck + Hill (Pharm), Davis + Parbrook (P

Kristine ESTENSEN wrote 08-27-2010 09:13:58 pm
Hi Christopher,

I agree with everything you have said... Nice to know I am sort of on the right track. I too went insane trying to do the syllabus point by point. It actually doesnt help answer the SAQ's much. I didnt know about the Amanda Diaz site. So thanks to those who shared that great information.

My only other tip is that a few of the feedback reports seem to just love Stoetling on a number of things, which I agree is a bit frustrating due to the errors. Dont forget statistics - have a look at the past anaesthetic SAQ's for this too.

Good luck for the exam !! (Its great there is another one of us out there).
Kristine

alexander browne wrote 08-14-2011 02:54:50 pm
I would still run with a different primary with more resources behind it eg. ACEM (which I did), Anaesthetics or the physician exam, (which will help somewhat with the hot cases later). The bar for the CICM exam is quite high. In the first year, noone passed. I'm glad my primary counted.

Todd Fraser wrote 08-14-2011 08:27:34 pm
Coming soon : Our new Primary Exam section - comprising an annotated syllabus of the primary exam complete with study notes. More to come soon with viva videos, tips and more.

Todd Fraser wrote 12-09-2010 06:07:59 pm
The Primary race has been run and won for another year. It seems to be getting harder and harder.

I had an email from one trainee who says that he attended the ANZCA primary exam course and found it very helpful. Certainly the degree of detail required appears to be similar in these two exams, so latching on to anaesthetic hopefuls is probably a good idea.

Hopefully we will soon see ICU specific Primary Courses being developed to cope with the increasing numbers of candidates.

Todd Fraser wrote 10-07-2012 10:53:27 am
James Doyle has done an amazing job putting together his Primary Interactive Syllabus. Its got high quality notes aplenty to satisfy your primary needs. Check it out here - http://crit-iq.com/index.php/Primary_Interactive_Syllabus

Chrisando1 from Australia wrote 06-27-2013 05:38:00 pm
As an added resource I have collated my CICM primary notes onto a single website. The notes are broken up into major sections and they have been developed in specific response to the CICM syllabus.

I am in the process of updating some of the sections but most of the syllabus is covered as well as some suggested answers to the SAQ and a starting point for the Vivas.

All available for free; icuprimaryprep.com

Mahesh from Australia wrote 10-21-2013 09:34:19 am
As someone who used Chris's website extensively whilst preparing for the primary, I'd recommend anyone who is planning to sit to have a look. He's done a great job of organizing a massive amount of info into little parcels under appropriate headings that are all in pdf format.