Pass the PSA E-Book

Product Information

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. 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. In addition:• Introduces a simple, memorable and failsafe approach to prescribing (the ‘PReSCRIBER’ mnemonic). 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. It is made up of 8 sections totalling 200 marks. The time given to complete this is 120 minutes. Questions will cover topics such as Medicine, Surgery, General Practice, Psychiatry, Paediatrics, Obstetrics & Gynaecology, and Elderly Care.

To apply for the PSA Temporary Pass /PSA Pass, please complete this application form and submit it together with the following documents: PSA Temporary PassYou will be asked to choose an appropriate drug or intravenous fluid with its corresponding dose, route, and frequency.

The PSA Pass Centre is open between 8.00am and 5.00pm from Monday to Friday only and is closed on Public Holidays. The last queue number will be issued at 4.30pm for any application and collection. The PSA is undertaken by medical students in the early spring of their final year. It is an online exam that lasts for two hours and comprises 60 questions across eight-question formats. The total number of marks available is 200. Each medical school is allowed to choose whether or not they interpret the PSA as a summative assessment towards their medical degree.

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. Learn the common and serious side-effects and monitoring requirements for: ACEi, antidepressants, anticoagulants, bisphosphonates, HRT, insulin, methotrexate, and statins. 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’. This section comprises 40% of the available marks. You will be given a clinical scenario and asked to prescribe one drug/ fluid.

There are often several correct drug/ dose/ route combinations which will receive full marks. Lower marks are given for suboptimal options.You will be provided with a clinical scenario and some investigation results and tasked with determining the most appropriate course of action forward with regard to prescribing. (e.g withdrawing a medication, reducing its dose, no change, increasing its dose or switching to a new medication). The treatment is often tailored to individual patients and depends can potentially depend on factors such as gender (e.g duration of UTI treatment for men is 7 days), drug history and allergies.

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.Read carefully whether you are being asked to assess that the treatment is working/ beneficial or whether you are assessing for adverse effects – you will do different tests for each of these. From 1 February 2022, unvaccinated individuals will not be able to apply for passes and/or access PSA Terminals. Don’t make it too complicated. Remember, this exam is aimed at final year medical students and Foundation Year 1 doctors so the paper will not ask you to prescribe chemotherapy drugs or other specialist medications so don’t worry about learning those.