An IMG's Journey

Story of an entire Journey of PLAB by an IMG

I would like to share my journey from IELTS to PASSing PLAB2. Kindly jump to your favorite section if you find my story long.

Time duration from scratch to conquer the kingdom

Deciding to start PLAB to reach a job is at least a 2 year journey if you do everything back to back and don’t stuck in getting language certificate, have no Visa issues or rejection, no exam cancellation or FAILing in exam and being able to get a job in some few months.

You may ask honest opinion from those who have completed these steps, and many unbelievable stories would arise. My mentor, who I owe a lot and many might know him from his famous blog, spent near two years after PLAB 1 only to get to the UK for his PLAB2, he had 2 visa rejections while his twin brother got it easily with exactly the same condition. Another PLAB MOCK-examiner who wrote her detailed impressive story here, she describes failing PLAB 1 many times, overall it took 5-6 years for her after lots of up and down in her tragedic life, she had to revalidate IELTS each time after expiration to take another PLAB 1. So if you are at the start of your preparation, I take your attention to the matter to deem all steps seriously.

UK or not to be? That's the question!

If you are at the beginning, I would like to advise you considering other EU countries as well, especially north European countries, while in terms of quality of life, payment, specialty training, cities, cleanness, politeness, tolerance, traffic behavior and whatever you might be interested in, many of them are more advanced than the UK. You, however, need to know or learn their language to be able to communicate easily with the patients. My beautiful lovely UK is now like a lousy guy in Titanic first-class flour, and near most economists warns situation would become worse after Brexit in terms of economy. UK medicine, admittedly is in higher reputation than many, if we only consider prestige names such as Oxford and Cambridge or if we count Nobel prize winners and those respected scientists. But I am talking about current average working places, hospitals, cities and finally we ourselves as IMG doctors. Having checked Data such as GDP, GDP per capita, GINI and HDI that reflects the wealth of a country, Dr's salary or job opportunity, I could remain in my own place in the EU Schengen zone if I had no family issues. There are many economic figures in favor of other EU lands than the UK, and numbers don’t lie. Comparing the facilities or organization in hospitals, I won’t dare to compare old fox to other wealthier north European countries. My beautiful lovely UK is lagging behind.

Alas, my beautiful UK is not a dreamland any more, and Drs barely could get through the speciality training program. In many other countries i.e. Sweden, Norway, particularly Germany, etc., once you get your approbation, you just start your desired specialty with no more exams. MRCP PACES are also one of the most difficult exams in the world over, I would say.

Despite all gossips, you decided to join us in the UK, congratulation! Here are my tips:

IELTS

R 9, L 8.5, W 7, S 8.

I have done my language at the time that we fought like a real men. We struggled to PASS. We were repeating the test up to our last blood, there was no OET at that time so IELTS was the only option and it was a real battle (Ok sorry I lied, we tried till daddy could support our laziness, also OET was at that time accepted, but I was stubborn enough to remain on my way and repeating IELTS).

I speak some European language and could communicate easily in English while traveling. I was also familiar with the exam format while I have done it before for my post doc. It took however 8 months preparation for me in total and repeating it 4 times. I used on-line resources. A typical pass IELTS figure is like R & L 8.5 or 9 and S which is usually lower could be 7.5 to 8.5 and then comes Writing, here the world is waiting for your score! According to IELTS official, every 1 band takes at least 3 month full studying and among scores, skills such as S and W takes more time to develop and W is the lowest band among all.

My Two Pence

Don’t try IELTS unless you easily get 8.5 or more in R & L, always and repeatedly at home and unless you have written dozens of both essays under time control. Whatever your score is, if you just suffer from 0.5 band, try next after some months. If you repeat it like a lottery, you get the same even lower one. If you studied dedicatedly for some months and then ended up to 7, 7.5, 6, 6.5 then you have a hard job to reach your desired score, I would say after another 4-6 months practicing. Many can not pass the language tests after many repetitions so they stop their effort forever. I fought till my last blood, I also don’t know OET. I died 3 times to pass IELTS. Please respect me as a wounded veteran and don’t ask me about OET.

PLAB 1

I got 159 and the PASS mark was 120 from 180. I started my studies in the middle of IELTS preparation. Overall it took me about 9 months. I had done a similar license exam at that time, but I studied again, obviously at first on and off while I was studying IELTS, then somehow every single day, ended up to a full day at weekends while colleagues were high, dancing at bars. It was like torture. I didn’t subscribe to any on-line resources or any tests that most people do, neither attend any classes. I, however, used some old tests which were available in PDF format, those such as 1700 or others. Soon I got the idea, I started reading repeated topics, those which are in favor of examiner and comes a lot, from books. I became a master in asthma, Addison, etc., and could answer them in any order at any time. I also called my colleague Mr. Atkinson, by mistake, Mr.Addison. He, however, believes it was at least better than teasing him by calling Mr.Bean. One month before the exam, I understood I will pass with a confident score. I did some MOCKs which I just used them to time management. My PDF old MOCKs were rubbish in terms of learning but it helped me to get an idea about time pressure. I used to clear them in 2 hours instead of 3. I own my score to checking tests and reading books, which most people avoid the second.

My advice: PLAB is probably the hardest license exam in the world over, or at least I'm not aware of any similar one that can beat it. Take it seriously and study hard. Check tests and then move to books if you want to have a definite pass. Don’t believe those misleading stories that say they could pass in two weeks, neither relay on tests alone. People study for months and still somehow about 40% may fail (GMC annually data). Saying PLAB is one of the hardest licensing exams in the world, some people claim USMLE, AMC, MCCEE or whatever is tougher, this is a wrong comparison, while those exams give you a higher level of registration; if you pass them you would go for matching or residency program whatsoever. By PLAB you would just be the second year of internship (Foundation Year program two or FY2). In my home country Internship was 17 months excluding dissertation. If you want to compare those USMLE, AMC, MCCEE exams with something in the UK, then MRCP PACES says a big Hello to you.

PLAB 2

15 out of 17 stations (one omitted by result), overall 161. It took 6 months of preparation for me and 2 good attempts to PASS. This is the trickiest part. You are at the end of your journey, but it can still easily prevent you to accomplish your mission. Although most people can PASS it easily in the first try (more than 60%), sadly many fails two or three times and I heard about few that couldn’t get through after their 4th attempt. All Data are available in GMC, unfortunately, the fail rate in this exam is also high about 40%. Keeping in mind I had done post-doc plus one and half year residency training in a more advanced hospital comparing to many hospitals in the UK, working in a near similar system, I still failed in the first attempt! The problem was lack of preparation and having no clue about the concept of this exam. The whole learning process usually takes 3-4 months to gather some info before doing a course, which I regretfully was not aware of that and learned nothing, NOTHING, before starting my course (This was the routine practice by candidates before Covid 19 pandemic) then you have to ideally practice 2-3 months after the course by different people and doing role-play or destroying manikin and all devices in the academy. I know many who didn't prepare before the course and had just some weeks to clear the exam, but they are mostly exception and this can’t be the routine exercise. I am also aware of many misleading posts in FB, fake news, stories such as one from a person whom I know; she failed and repeated the course after about a year due to visa and finance issues. Having practiced months and repeating the course for the second time and then training for 4 weeks after that, she could PASS. She congratulated herself for PASSing by writing a post on Facebook, telling that she had studied just for 4 weeks. I was in love, so I was also impressed by her smartness and liked her post.

My advice: Remain wise, study, and practice! You need to put time and practice all stations ideally 3-4 times and knowing them by heart, they are more than 350. You can easily calculate how much time does it take to practice all of them in detail. There are about 150 stations that make the backbone of the exam and would be thought in any academy and approximately 200 other stations that are slightly different or have completely another approach. You need to learn them all. If anyone claim he passed the exam while he missed half of the course due to visa issue (before Covid-19 that academies were open) and had just a few days to practice, then better to avoid his advice. It won’t be your routine!

My last advice for those whose exam is near

Practice combined and teaching stations, you probably suffer of on-hand training due to our little guest, Mr. Covid, who collapsed our world and closed every place. Such stations are appearing a lot and they are always overlooked to be practiced.

Thank you for reading my post. I hope you have got an idea about the PLAB exam.