DipIMC RCS(Ed)

[Guest guest]

Folks,

Below are a few words from Andy Thurgood, who apart from being the Equipment

Officer at BASICS is also a tutor and keen proponant of the Diploma in

Immediate Care from the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh. In the UK,

this qualification is seen as the gold standard for pre-hospital care and

many doctors, nurses and paramedics are proud recipients of the diploma each

year.

If any of you wish to learn further about the diploma, please pass on your

comments to me and I will field these to Andy.

Ross

Editor and co-owner

RemoteMedics Online

ross@...

www.remotemedics.co.uk

Ross

Preparing for the DipIMC is a difficult task, a task which has to be broken

down in to target areas of revision. The secret to revising for the DipIMC

is

to move through the main stream areas of pre-hospital care over a fairly

long

period of time so as not to rush material and skim.

I run, along with Porter, DipIMC revision days and these are designed

to offer the candidate an insight int the exam and its core content. Places

on these revision courses are well received and can be seen as the final

" grooming " required before putting oneself before the RCS Ed examiners.

Needless to say, attending the one day revision course will not secure a

pass

in the DipIMC.

A syllabus can be requested from the facuty of pre-hospital care but all its

says really is you should cover everything to do with PHC...... So its not a

syllabus as such!

One area I would highlight is in core skills, these are where many

practitioners fall during the exam, adult BLS/ALS, pead BLS/ALS and neonatal

BLS/ALS, defibrillation, airway management and frontline drugs. These skills

should be 100% solid and committed to the subconsciousness so that when

under exam pressure your not left floundering on how to do BLS very very

well........ it happens!

There is a DipIMC revision day comming up in Birmingham, and it may be worth

attending to get the flavour of what the exam is all about. I'm running it

for the joint services at the Centre for Defence Medicine and you are very

welcome to attend. It will however cost, and the fee has yet to be

negotiated

but if your interested I'll keep you posted.... as an idea, the last cost

£50

for the day.

In the mean time, right down what you think your good at, and then what your

weak at, from this you will get your shopping list for the start of your

revision.

Why do people fail the DipIMC

1. lack of core skills

2. poor surrounding/supporting knowledge

3. nerves!

4. poor exan technique

4a. projected material

4b. triage

4c. short answers

4d. moulage

4e. viva

Do get intouch if I can guide any more and if you'd like to plug into the

forthcoming revision program let me know.

Regards

Andy

Andy Thurgood RGN. MSc. DipHS. DipIMC RCS Ed.

Independent consultant nurse & Immediate care practitioner