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- WHAT IS THE PSA?
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Welcome to Prepare for the PSA, a revision tutorial for medical students who are getting ready for the Prescribing Safety Assessment (formerly the Prescribing Skills Assessment).
For an introduction to the exam format and links to further information, click 'What is the PSA?'.
The main section of the tutorial is a practice exam, with personalised feedback and interactive learning exercises after each question. Click 'Take the Test!' to get straight on with the practice exam.
For more information about the tutorial itself, including news, troubleshooting tips and a list of references, click 'About'.
Prepare for the PSA is a collaborative project and we'd love for you to get involved. Help out by writing a question.
We are unofficial! This site and its content are not endorsed by the Medical Schools Council or the British Pharmacological Society and its associated product, the PSA.
- Overview
- Rationale
- Exam Format
- Resources
The PSA is a prescribing exam for final-year medical students, which was introduced in some UK medical schools from the 2013/14 academic year onward.
The PSA is used as a formative assessment in some medical schools, and as a summative assessment in others. If your medical school uses the PSA as a summative assessment, your mark will not contribute towards your UK Foundation Programme application ranking, but you must pass in order to graduate and start work as a doctor.
Click 'Rationale' or 'Exam Format' above for a quick introduction to the PSA. More detailed information is available on the official PSA Website.
Click 'Resources' to access other online learning material about prescribing, including further PSA practice questions.
Foundation doctors are expected to prescribe very frequently, and it is essential to patient well-being that they do so appropriately and safely.
However, research indicates that newly-qualified doctors find prescribing particularly challenging, and the EQUIP study identified errors in 8.4% of the 50016 prescriptions written by FY1 doctors it reviewed in 2009.
In Tomorrow's Doctors (2009), the GMC outlined a number of prescribing skills which all foundation doctors should possess. The PSA is designed to test these skills in final-year medical students to ensure that they are safe and effective prescribers once they start work.
More information is available in the About the PSA section of the PSA Website.
The PSA is a computer-based exam lasting two hours. The exam is divided into 8 stations and each station contains 6-8 questions.
Candidates are provided with BNFs during the exam and are encouraged to use these to support their prescribing decisions. The real PSA contain four times as many questions as this tutorial and does not include feedback and interactive learning sections between each question.
Detailed information about each station is available in the PSA Blueprint. See Appendix B of the Blueprint for a list of potential question topics. The PSA Website lists answers to other frequently-asked questions.
The exam structure and layout used in this tutorial applies to the pilot PSA assessment and may not be precisely replicated in the final version of the PSA.
Finished Prepare for the PSA? Try the links below for more practice exam questions and information on prescribing.
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Two practice exams are available on the official PSA Pilot website. If your medical school is participating in the PSA, you will be sent details of how to access this website prior to your exam.
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Five example PSA questions are given on the PSA Website and several more are available to download as PowerPoint files as part of the PSA question templates.
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Drug of the Week is a great series of e-learning modules produced by Bart's and the London School of Medicine. The 'Prescribing Skills' modules focus on the PSA and contain lots of practice questions
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Prescribe is an 'e-learning platform to help medical students and others develop a firm grounding in the principles of basic and clinical pharmacology'. Their e-Learning Resources section contains links to other useful websites.
- Objectives
- Navigation
- Take the Test!
By the end of the test you should...
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Have assessed your prescribing skills in the context of some common clinical scenarios
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Have improved your prescribing skills through attention to personalised feedback and use of interactive learning activities
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Be more comfortable using the BNF to inform your prescribing decisions
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Have been introduced to other online resources for the improvement of prescribing skills
You can review these learning objectives after completing the test. Click on 'Navigation' to familiarise yourself with the test layout before starting.
The layout of the test is different from that of the real PSA. Roll over different areas of the screenshot below for tips on using this tutorial.
The questions and feedback activities should take around 45 minutes to complete.
After each feedback section, you'll be given the option to retry the current question. Try using this feature to reinforce the knowledge you gain during the feedback activities.
- What's New?
- Authors
- References
- FAQs
Prepare for the PSA was written by Finn Catling , an academic foundation doctor at North Middlesex Hospital, London. with any questions or comments.
The project was conceived of and supervised by Dr. Robert Baker. Special thanks go to Prof. Simon Maxwell (PSA Medical Director) for his advice and encouragement during development of the tutorial.
For more information on the project, take a look at our recent article in The Clinical Teacher.
Click the questions titles below for authorship information.
Written by Finn Catling (Medical Student, University of Bristol). Moderated by Dr. Robert Baker (Lead for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics, University of Bristol).
Written by Adam Youssef (Clinical Teaching Fellow, Gloucestershire Royal Hospital). Moderated by Dr. Andrew Stanton (Consultant in Respiratory Medicine, Great Western Hospital).
Written by Finn Catling (Medical Student, University of Bristol). Moderated by Dr. Robert Baker (Lead for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics, University of Bristol).
Written by George Morris (Clinical Teaching Fellow, Royal United Hospital). Moderated by Robert Baker (Lead for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics, University of Bristol).
Written by Finn Catling (Medical Student, University of Bristol). Moderated by Dr. Robert Baker (Lead for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics, University of Bristol).
Written by Finn Catling (Medical Student, University of Bristol). Moderated by Dr. Robert Baker (Lead for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics, University of Bristol).
Written by George Morris (Clinical Teaching Fellow at Royal United Hopital, Bath). Moderated by Dr. Robert Baker (Lead for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics, University of Bristol).
Written by Finn Catling (Medical Student, University of Bristol). Moderated by Dr. Robert Baker (Lead for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics, University of Bristol).
Written by George Morris (Clinical Teaching Fellow, Royal United Hospital). Moderated by Robert Baker (Lead for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics, University of Bristol).
Written by Finn Catling (Medical Student, University of Bristol). Moderated by Dr. Robert Baker (Lead for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics, University of Bristol).
p>Written by Finn Catling (Medical Student, University of Bristol). Moderated by Dr. Robert Baker (Lead for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics, University of Bristol).
Written by Finn Catling (Medical Student, University of Bristol). Moderated by Dr. Robert Baker (Lead for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics, University of Bristol).
Written by Finn Catling (Medical Student, University of Bristol). Moderated by Dr. Robert Baker (Lead for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics, University of Bristol).
Written by Finn Catling (Medical Student, University of Bristol). Moderated by Dr. Robert Baker (Lead for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics, University of Bristol).
Written by Finn Catling (Medical Student, University of Bristol). Moderated by Dr. Robert Baker (Lead for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics, University of Bristol).
Written by Amy Crees (Clinical Teaching Fellow, Royal United Hospital). Moderated by Jarrod Richards (Specialist Registrar in Geriatric Medicine, Royal United Hospital).
Written by Finn Catling (Medical Student, University of Bristol). Moderated by Dr. Robert Baker (Lead for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics, University of Bristol).
Prepare for the PSA is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.
Want to see this information during the test? Click the about button to view the references and authors of the current question.
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Prepare for the PSA has been tested using Microsoft Internet Explorer 8 and higher; the latest versions of Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome and Opera for PC; Safari for Mac; and the built-in browser for Android devices. If you are having display problems, make sure you are you using the latest version of your internet browsing software.
For the interactive elements in the tutorial to function correctly, you must enable JavaScript.
The tutorial uses a cookie to keep track of your progress through the test. No personal information is stored and the cookie is erased when you close your browser.
If you are happy to receive the cookie, just continue using the tutorial. Alternatively, you can learn more about cookies and how to change your settings. Note that the tutorial will not function correctly if you decide to not to allow cookies.
Try setting your screen resolution to 1024x768 (or higher) and maximising the browser window. Alternatively, you can use your browser's zoom feature to make the tutorial appear smaller.
The drag-and-drop exercises are Flash content and may not function properly on some iDevices. The amount of Flash content has been deliberately kept to a minimum so as to minimise the impact on users of these devices.
First, check whether the question has been included in your test using the Select a Question menu. If it has not been included, use the refresh button next to the question title to cycle through other available questions.
NB. Before using the refresh buttom, make sure you are viewing a question of the same type as the specific question desired (e.g. if you want to view a specific Prescription Review question which is not included in your test, select one of the included Prescription Review questions using the Select a Question menu, then use the refresh button).
Please and let us know about the mistake. We'll get it corrected ASAP.
and we'll try to help!
