Main description:

The Recorded Consultation Assessment (RCA) represents a significant change for a generation of doctors used to taking practical exams featuring actors. The RCA exam is based on recordings of your telephone and video consultations with genuine patients, but of course patients don't present or respond quite like actors do!

This full-colour book provides a practical guide to help nervous candidates, and particularly International Medical Graduates (IMGs), prepare effectively, with useful advice on:

Common pitfalls
Working with your practice team to identify the patients you need
Obtaining consent
Differentiating between low and high challenge cases, and which topics to avoid
Setting up the technology for telephone, video and face-to-face consultations
How to perform well in each of the core domains

In addition, the book takes you through all aspects of using the FourteenFish platform to record, assess and submit your consultations, with screenshots used to illustrate every step.

If you need help to prepare from someone who passed the exam as part of the first cohort, who has run RCA exam preparation courses, and who has checked what is required with trainers and programme directors, then you need this book!

Really packed with practical and clinical tips
Covers everything you need to know before submitting
A stress-free way to prepare for the exam

Contents:

Acknowledgements; Preface; About the authors

PART I: Introduction to the Recorded Consultation Assessment (RCA)

1 Introduction

2 What is the RCA?

2.1 Policies

2.2 Marking

2.3 New changes

2.4 Breaches

3 The differences between the RCA, the CSA and real-life consultations

3.1 The linear path of a consultation

3.2 Technology

3.3 Pre-consultation

3.4 Your communication style

3.5 The third wheel

3.6 Multiple problems leading to multiple paths

3.7 Information-gathering routes

3.8 That golden minute

3.9 Time difference

4 Common pitfalls

4.1 Feedback by domain

4.2 Global feedback

4.3 Data gathering, technical and assessment skills

4.4 Interpersonal skills

4.5 Clinical management

4.6 Your pitfalls

5 Which cases to submit? (contributing author: Pernia Javid)

5.1 Is it appropriate?

5.2 Telephone, face-to-face or video?

5.3 Domains

5.4 Clinical topics

5.5 Appropriate challenge cases

5.6 The workbook

5.7 Your logbook

6 Preparing for and booking the RCA

6.1 Identifying your weaknesses

6.2 When to sit the exam?

6.3 Teamwork

6.4 The triage system

6.5 Recording

6.6 A preparatory checklist

6.7 Booking the RCA

6.8 Using the FourteenFish system

6.9 Planning how to get ready for the RCA checklist

PART II: How to record for the RCA

7 Consent (contributing author: Abraham Thomas)

7.1 How can you obtain consent?

7.2 How FourteenFish records consent

7.3 Showing consent for a recording made outside of FourteenFish

7.4 How will the recordings be stored?

8 How to set up the technology

8.1 Signal and internet

8.2 What you need to know before recording

8.3 What you need for a telephone consultation

8.4 What you need for a video consultation

8.5 What you need for a face-to-face video consultation

8.6 Uploading from outside the FourteenFish platform

8.7 Deleting the file

8.8 How to record checklist

PART III: The consultation

9 Pre-consultation (contributing author: Rakin Anwar)

9.1 Everyday routine

9.2 Images

9.3 Patient research

10 Interpersonal skills (contributing author: Rohan Lakhani)

10.1 How do you act?

10.2 Covid-specific communication challenges

11 Data gathering (contributing author: Rakin Anwar)

11.1 Introduction for a telephone/video consultation

11.2 Introduction for a face-to-face recording

11.3 Structured history

11.4 Special circumstances

11.5 General examination

11.6 Examination when remote consulting

12 Clinical management (contributing author: Rakin Anwar)

12.1 How to explain the management plan

12.2 Making it patient-centred

12.3 Logistics

12.4 Prescribing

12.5 Health promotion

12.6 Safety-netting

12.7 Consenting again

PART IV: The final steps to submit for the RCA

13 The workbook

13.1 Workbook examples

13.2 Mandatory criteria

14 The final steps to submit through FourteenFish (contributing author: Abraham Thomas)

14.1 Verification of cases by your trainer

14.2 Checking the final 13 cases

14.3 The final submission