Haematology experience

So I had haematology yesterday. It’s a written exam, with simple choice and multiple choice questions. There are 40 questions on the test, each worth 2 points. You can get 20 points from the oral test, so the total max is 100 points. Some of the questions are based on cases. We were supposed to get our grade before 14:00 yesterday, but we got it this morning.

I had pharma on monday, so I didn’t have much time to study for it. Upper year students will tell you what material to study, and they’re not wrong; you should listen to them. However, of the 40 questions on the exam, I was only 100% sure about 10 of them (based on the previously mentioned material) while the remaining questions were difficult, so I wasn’t expecting anything else than a 1 or maybe 2. In the end I got a 4 somehow. Maybe the grades were normal distributed, or maybe the 30 questions weren’t as hard as I thought.

My tip to people studying for haema: definitely study what upper year students tell you to, but also focus on the treatment of the important malignancies, especially lymphomas, leukaemias and multiple myeloma. Learn the drugs and chemotherapy regimens used (just their names) and when stem cell transplant is used. Everyone I know who had pharma on monday and had haema yesterday passed it. You’ll be fine.

My next exam is clinical biochem on monday. Hope they’re nice.