PLAB Part 1 test Syllabus
PLAB 1 Syllabus
The subject matter of the PLAB Part 1 exam is defined in terms of skills and content. Questions begin with a title that specifies both the skill and the content they are testing.
Skills
The exam tests four groups of skills in approximately equal proportions:
- Diagnosis
- Investigations
- Management
- The context of clinical practice
Given the important facts about a patient (such as age, gender, nature and duration of presenting symptoms), a candidate will be asked to:
Diagnosis: Select the most likely diagnosis from a range of possibilities
Investigations: Select or interpret diagnostic tests
Management: Select the most suitable course of treatment, with knowledge of drug therapy and side effects.
The context of clinical practice may include questions testing skills in:
- Awareness of multicultural society
- Application of scientific understanding to medicine
- Explanation of disease process
- Health promotion
- Legal ethical
- Practice of evidence-based medicine
- Understanding of epidemiology
Content The content tested is generally defined in terms of patient presentations and includes:
- Accident and emergency medicine (to include trauma and burns)
- Blood (to include coagulation defects)
- Cardiovascular system (to include heart and blood vessels and blood pressure)
- Disorders of childhood (to include non-accidental injury and child sexual abuse; fetal medicine; growth and development)
- Dermatology, allergy, immunology and infectious diseases
- Disorders of the elderly (to include palliative care)
- ENT and eyes
- Gastrointestinal tract, liver and biliary system, and nutrition
- Metabolism, endocrinology and diabetes
- Nervous system (both medical and surgical)
- Orthopaedics and rheumatology
- Peri-operative management
- Psychiatry (to include substance abuse)
- Renal System (to include urinary tract and genitourinary medicine)
- Respiratory system