Blitzkrieg

If you are still keen to have some practical tips for clinical examination, I could show you one that we used in the old days.

I call it the Blitzkrieg tactic - which I first learned from the story of Adolf Hitler, when he conquered Poland and France in late 1930s.

In the old days, the major hurdle of a clinical examination is the short case, which the candidate had to face two examiners. Usually one of them being much more senior than the other, and had naturally much influence on the actual scoring. The marking scheme was, alas, the time-honoured impression marking - the examiner could give you anything between 45 to 60 in the final MB, or 0 to 12 in MRCP.

In other words, you only have to impress one person in order to score high.

And you only need to impress that one in the first two or three minutes; once they are taken in, everything you do they feel satisfied.

How ? I shall leave it to your imagination.