It has been a whirlwind year and I finally passed my part 2 written in my second attempt. Thank the Lord in all His goodness. The December 2021 paper was difficult and honestly I was tossing between the idea of moving back to Australia vs staying put in bolehland. Perhaps, I was rather half-hearted, no? It was a 2-weeks ordeal whereby I literally just locked myself in my room for 24/7 and my only breaks were picking up foodpanda deliveries and ‘leisurely’ joining dad for his daily evening walks.
Summing up my part 2 prep experiences, it’s definitely a doable exam with ample preparation.
Preparation time
Approximately 2 months with intensive 2-weeks study break but it’s super stressful. Given a chance to reverse time, I will definitely give myself 4-6 months study prep. The only downside is it seems difficult to retain memory at my age! Mid 30s waving at me soon hey.
Preparation materials
- Eye docs MCQ (a bit dated i would say and their guidelines mcqs e.g. glaucoma/rop are out of date so please do your own reading on rcophth/nice)
- Ophthoquestion- So expensive costs me around 500usd to sign up for it I think but questions are solid with explanations contributed by very (i would say extremely) knowledgeable and helpful exam goers. Their frcophth part 2 package seems lil though, say a <300questions? And I could not go back to questions which I have answered (correctly) unless we reset the questionbank and we are only limited to 1 reset for the entire subscription so, any future resets will cost you extra monies!
- MCQs for FRCOphth part 2 by Darren S. J Ting & David Steel -super difficult and challenging sets of questions but reflects the real standards in part 2 exams. So this is a must-do! (https://www.amazon.com/MCQs-FRCOphth-Oxford-Specialty-Training/dp/0198825765)
- Kanski Clinical Ophthalmology: A systematic approach (my go-to book for simplistic and basic understanding of each subspecialty/section while finishing MCQs. My bad and failure in my first attempt last Dec 2022 was precisely because of my greediness in putting quantity over quality. My goal was to finish as many MCQ banks as I could without truly understanding concepts which were pertinent to passing the exam (and obviously becoming a good practitioner!)
- AAO books for deeper/further understanding when kanski cannot satisfy me lols.
- Eyes for Ears podcast – listen when you are driving, pooping, showering or just when you want your mind to go blank. Super useful for those who need to listen once to get things committed to memory.
- Youtube channel: Prof Andrew Lee’s neuro-ophthalmology channel is goldmine with lotsa useful/practical informations. Somehow he manages to summarise complicated concepts into simple ones and I need to give him credit for scoring almost 100% for my neuro (Bragging, hey) section. High yield for exams and I strongly recommend it to any exam goers.
- mrcophth chua website is another website. Practical questions from god knows when but only try it when you are ready. If you think his questionbanks are doable or at least understandable, pretty high chance that you will pass the exam!
Exam day
It was a super long and tiring day. Make sure you had a good night rest prior to d-day. There is a reason for putting in every possible information in the question stem. As ambiguous as the question seems to be, do remember that the examiners are here to help you pass and they wanna assess your knowledge based on ‘normal’ and ‘predictable’ patterns. So for e.g. myopic young male with some very vague presentations pointing to types of glaucoma. Think why myopia? Why did the examiner specifically write ‘myopia’? I thought it was related to pigment dispersion syndrome as kanski clearly stated that PDS is more common in young myopic male. Towards the end of the 2nd paper, it was so gruelling that I almost fell asleep and I ended 20 mins earlier as my brain could no longer take it and i have on call the next day.
I thank god that I passed and yeah so that’s it. Hopefully this review helps those who are going for the part 2 exam. It’s tough and preparation is crazy but so worth it when you realised that you have at least gain a certain level of knowledge. 🙂
Now onto the next and final paper before we become a licensed ophthalmologist. (Fingers crossed)
Doctor on FIRE 