Latest issue

Preparing for the AKT

The reason for writing this blog is to articulate and reflect on advice that I give students ( if others comment and feedback to me this is an additional bonus); I hope that this will allow me to continue to develop the support that I can give to my students.

The best way of preparing for the AKT is to see a patient on your placement and create ILOs around the case. 

For example if your patient is a diabetic with hypertension, taking metformin and ramipril presenting with pneumonia your ILOs (intended learning objectives) could include the following

  • Causes of pneumonia
  • CURB-65 revision
  • Complications of pneumonia
  • Metformin MISTIME (M = mode of action, I = indications, S = side-effects, T = therapeutic evaluation, I = interactions, M = monitoring, E = education)
  • Ramipril MISTIME
  • Causes of hypertension

I would suggest creating ILOs that take no longer than 15 mins to learn (i.e. break them down – do not have “pneumonia” as an ILO). Include some ILOs that you are already partly familiar with as revision and as “morale building “.

Create enough to fill 1 hour of work.

Record the learning in an easily retrievable form – this may be electronic or paper and could include mind maps/flash cards or Anki ( try and use a variety).

The above case includes ID, endocrinology, pharmacology and cardiovascular medicine.

You could use the same case for generating the following ILOS

  • Antimicrobials in pneumonia
  • CXR findings in pneumonia 
  • Oxygen prescribing
  • Diagnosing diabetes
  • Fundosopy changes in hypertensive retinopathy

The ILOs do not need to be directly related to the specific issues that your patient had but the patient should be a trigger for you identifying areas of learning and revision.

Once you have completed your ILOs, create an AKT question based on your patient ( you can use chatgpt to help with this.( although important to check that the content is correct and up to date)

Keep the question for revision (and/or share/swap questions within your CIL/clinical/social groups).

By the end of your placement you should have the beginnings of revision resources to use later in the year.

The above should take no longer than 2 hours. This year will require approx. 2 hrs study a day.

If you are struggling with this these are a few things I have tried which may help

  • 30 mins study in the morning ( if you are a morning person). 
  • Recording revision and listening to it on way to work ( relevant podcasts are also useful)
  • Flash cards on phone or always in bag so you can look at while waiting for bus/tutor/phone to arrive; a few minutes with frequent repetition works well for me
  • Always having a UCD ( Ubiquitous Capture Device); mine is a notebook but phones can work so you record an ILO as soon as it occurs to you or is mentioned to you ( I instantly forget even important stuff so need to record)
  • Important notes of stuff you can never remember ( mine was hepatitis serology) pinned up next to mirror or on the fridge.

Having said that it is always important to have downtime – even a phone call with a friend (ideally non medical) was a good break. I was never good at taking regular exercise as a student but now do so – and it does make a big difference to mood and wellbeing. 

There is a huge amount of info and content available on the internet but I think one of the most efficient ways of introducing a weekly and varied relevant update to your revision plan is reading the BMJ education section.  At least some of the contributors to this are also question writers for the AKT and the topics covered are really varied and often include self- assessment questions. Recent topics have included management of liver cirrhosis, spinal compression and prostatic disease.

I plan to continue to this blog but with much shorter entries hopefully identifying resources as I come across them.