Pass the PSA E-Book

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In the real assessment, the post-assessment review process considers every unrecognised answer and all credit-worthy answers are added to the mark scheme to enable marks to be credited. As the scope of testing for this section can be quite broad, knowledge of some common scenarios will be very helpful: Sometimes different dosages of the same medication are posed as different options in a question so if you are completely sure of the treatment for a condition, the best thing to do is search up the medication on the BNF and select the correct dosage under the indications/dosage section. The Geeky Medics P rescribing Safety Assessment (PSA) Question Bank has been crafted to accurately reflect the style and format of the actual PSA, with all of our questions adhering to official PSA guidelines. Get familiar with the BNF (both online and paper versions) and know where to find things as it isn’t always obvious or easy. For example, converting opioid doses is in the palliative care summary, HRT is in the sex hormones summary, and high INR management is in the oral anticoagulants summary.

The Prescribing Safety Assessment (PSA) is a pass/fail assessment of the skills, judgment and supporting knowledge related to prescribing medicines in the NHS. The PSA assesses the prescribing skills of final-year medical students and is based on the competencies identified by the General Medical Council outlined in Outcomes for graduates (originally published in Tomorrow's Doctors). These competencies include writing new prescriptions, reviewing existing prescriptions, calculating drug doses, identifying and avoiding both adverse drug reactions and medication errors and amending prescribing to suit individual patient circumstances. The content of each item is relevant to the prescribing tasks expected of an F1 doctor, i.e. the questions refer to ailments and drugs that graduates are likely to be dealing with in year one of the Foundation Programme. As an F1 you will often be asked to prescribe fluids so memorise the NICE guidelines for maintenance fluid: 25-30mL/kg/day of fluid, 1mmol/kg/day of sodium, potassium and chloride, and 50-100g/day of glucose. Know your metrics! milligrams and millilitres, micrograms and nanograms. Know the difference and how to convert between them. The drug of choice that should come to mind is ‘Furosemide” and hence should be searched up on the BNF to get information such as the route, dose and frequency As well as a detailed explanation for each PSA question, our question bank platform will display a relevant topic snippet (if available). For example, if a question asks about asthma management, a topic snippet covering asthma management will be displayed. Advanced analyticsTypically, you will be provided with 5 pieces of information and tasked with selecting the most important option to provide to the patient. Examples of the medicines that might be the focus of discussion include insulin, warfarin, salbutamol inhaler, methotrexate, or an oral hypoglycaemic medication. Solid state physics Quantum theory Chemical bonds SCIENCE Physics Condensed Matter Física do estado sólido Mecânica quântica There are often several correct drug/ dose/ route combinations which will receive full marks. Lower marks are given for suboptimal options. The information that is important can often be found in “important safety information” ( e.g Rivaroxaban not being effective on an empty stomach ), “patient and carer advice” (e.g advice regarding missed contraceptive doses) or “monitoring requirements”.

Each answer is composed of several variables (drug description (including form and strength), dose, route & frequency) and therefore, a correct answer can be expressed in a variety of ways, depending on the product selected. Due to the breadth of possible answers, some credit-worthy variations may not be included in a given mark scheme and recognised by the auto-scoring system. Newly qualified FY1 doctors will write and review many prescriptions each day, however, prescribing is often considered one of the most challenging areas. In addition, prescription errors are commonly observed in practice. Therefore, the PSA was introduced to ensure junior doctors are safe prescribers with the aim to improve clinical practice and reduce the number of prescribing errors. Don’t lose easy marks! As prescribing counts for a whopping great 40% of the marks don’t lose out on the ample marks available for your signature and the date! You will be asked to make a drug dosage calculation; the question will contain all relevant numerical data as well as distracting data that you will not need. You will be given the units.

The PSA is a very time-sensitive assessment and therefore time management is important. A guide of how long you should spend on each section (based on weightage) is as detailed below:

Ctrl F’ is your friend. The BNF is huge so ‘Ctrl F’ is ideal for finding drug interactions and side effects easily. The beginning of Appendix 1 in the paper BNF contains several tables of ‘drugs that cause…’. This saves you from looking up each drug individually when being asked which drug is most likely to cause ‘x’. From 1 February 2022, unvaccinated individuals will not be able to apply for passes and/or access PSA Terminals. There is an element of judgement of which is most important, if several pieces of information are accurate. For Pass Application by post, applicants are required to come personally to PSA Pass Centre on the date of pass collection to have your fingerprint/Photo enrol onto the PSA Pass.There will be 2 fluid prescribing questions – learn how much fluid a patient is likely to need for resuscitation, rehydration and maintenance, and which fluids to use. PSA Question Item Styles: Planning Management, Providing Information, Adverse Drug, Reactions, Drug Monitoring and Data Interpretation - Dr Lynne Bollington The Applicant’s masked NRIC number (for Singapore Citizen or Permanent Resident) FIN or Passport number (for foreigner); Utilise the “Interaction” section for the medication on the BNF. This will give a list of all interactions with the particular medication you are interested in. Again, use the ‘Ctrl F’ function to speed up your search.