Exams Ahoy!

A big week this for the MMed students in Internal Medicine. Those who were successful in their written paper will be sitting for their clinical this week. The Final Years also were involved. They defended their thesis this morning and all five of them from my program made it through. Alhamdulillah. Some of them came up with pretty dicey statements however during the presentation, but were able to defend them when pressed. Well done.

I was as usual heavily involved in the exams either coordinating, invigilating or examining. I can only be specific after the exams were completed however - it was Monday today. The big issue we had today was the shift of venue. Over the years, we used the Department Conference Room for the thesis presentation. However, there were construction going on, around the department and the noise level can at times drown the conversation. We thought it would not be fair to the candidate. Therefore, we moved the venue to the Faculty, in one of their makeshift room. The room was still under construction with the furnitures and fittings were still being installed but it got the job done.

Our external examiner is a gentleman from London. A very nice chap and has been here a few times in the past either visiting or examining. He was in general happy with the presentation, but made a comment which struck a chord with me. He made it clear that there are abundance of research to be made here, especially in Tropical Medicine, putting dengue as an obvious example. Made me blush, as at the moment, even to set aside time for myself during working hours were never easy, such was the demand of my job.

I took a few photographs with my phone during the day, which I will eventually post. The candidates will have more exams in the next few days, the important ones being the long and short cases on Wednesday and Thursday. Wishing them the best of luck

Results

I had the pleasure and displeasure earlier today to be present during the announcement of the results for the MMed Part I and II written exams taking place earlier this week. The majority of the candidates passed, and were looking forward to the Clinical Paper next months. Unfortunately there were casualties. A number of them I really did not expect to fail and I really was disappointed.

My colleague and I will be mulling through their marks and will try to make an objective recommendation when I meet them again next week for a post-mortem discussions. The implication of failing such exam was quite big, in the sense that, it forms a delay in their graduation by six months. It can result loss of seniority and income, not to mention denting one’s confidence. I hope those who did not make it this time to be objective, take the weekend off to chill. We shall meet again next week to see how we can assist them to pass in the very next seating. For those who have passed, you may still chill, but remember, the clinicals will be around soon. Before start working for that!

Marking

One of the main problem of being a Medical Lecturer is participating in assessment. Medical Lecturers were trained to become doctors first and foremost. Most of us have passion for teaching and research, but when it comes to curriculum building and assessment, we lack coaching and guidance. I attended a couple of courses on how to assess students, and was baffled at how much I didn’t know. To really learn the techniques, I was sure I will need about 4 weeks of coaching, without having to participate in clinical commitments to just be familiar, let alone master it. No wonder when it comes to assessing Medical Students to graduate them as doctors, even if the instruments were in place, often times it lacked standardisation. We then ended up not being discriminating enough in identifying the really poor candidates who did not deserve to pass, while picking up the cream to be promoted for distinctions. During exams, we as the examiners tended to trust our ‘gut’ feeling and let our emotions dictate our marking if we were not careful. For the last five years, I have never been really comfortable at being an examiner but in the last couple, I felt more at ease.

How about marking for written assessment? We can be terrible. I was marking essays today for the Masters exam and spent so much time trying to ‘deconstruct’ what was written and tried to be objective and methodical in distributing the marks. It was not easy, but things were getting better. Realising this, the steering and vetting committee decided to impress upon us examiners on the value of conforming to a marking scheme, while allowing some leeway for the candidates to express their thoughts. To help, the number of the examiners were also increased. For the 48 or so scripts we had to mark this morning, we had 12 examiners. In the end, we only had to scrutinise eight scripts before cross-checking them with a partner. At the end, everything was completed inside 2 and a half hours and I was already back at my Day Care by noon. I was dreading that the session would have extended until the afternoon. I was glad I was wrong.

Mock time!

As a teacher, the best feeling to have is when your students do well. In my field, I look to more than just passing exams, because frankly, they would have passed their exams without me teaching them. What's more important is being there when they needed help or guidance. After all, my students are adults. In fact, some of them were older than me.

Today, we held a mock exam for OSPE, one of the exam formats. The exam proper will take place next week and everyone was pretty jittery about it already. I was really pleasantly surprised that all the 15 candidates turned up to take the mock. Truly guys, that means a lot. They'll probably still pass the exam without the mock but I'm sure they will find it helpful for their preparation.

All the best!

What I was up to today

It was a long day for me today since I had to get to UKM very early. I was involved in the Masters of Medicine Examinations held over there. I arrived there late due to traffic. After briefings and preparation, we were ready to kick off with the exams proper.

We were lucky this time around since we at UM were not hosting for this diet. The part II were held in UKM. The part Is boys and girls were not so lucky. They had to make their way to Kubang Kerian for their clinicals. Some of my colleagues also flew off earlier in the week to examine there. It was the first time such arrangements were made. Previously USM hold their own clinical examinations for their candidates with the examiners coming from KL. The candidates from both UKM and UM will alternate between the two venues, often one centre doing part I and part II at the other. We were yet to find out whether the new arrangement is better or not. A meeting will be held later to discuss that.

It looks like the Masters program will be going through a period of transition in the near future. We are taking steps to change the marking system for the MCQ. No longer are they marked true or false with negative marking system. We are transitioning into the best of five answers, streamlining with the MRCP. Unfortunately, to get there will involve replacing much of the questions from our bank. That's going to be hard work.

Another change would be the inclusions of other parties into the fold. It looks like UiTM are interested in building up a post-graduate program similar to the Masters, and will be affiliated into the conjoint board once the plans are up. Maybe UPM will also follow suit, but I am yet to hear anything of that as yet.

After finishing my examinations, I rushed back to PPUM to quickly make sure that the final years have submitted their bounded thesis. All except one did it. I just hope that the last one do prior to the Board Meeting at 10 am tomorrow.

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