Multiple-choice questions (MCQs) are part and parcel of the requirements of medical students and post-graduate doctors during their years of training in the medical school and during residency. The format of multiple-choice questions continues to evolve or change over the years but one constant remains – their purpose. The purpose of MCQs is primarily assessment of the trainee’s knowledge. This assessment may be self-assessment or assessment by an examining body that may be the training institution or a national assessment body.
Once again I made this book unusual; it is unusual in the sense that it departs from most multiple-choice question books in medicine – they characteristically cover one area of specialization or sub-specialty while this book covers thirteen specialties. The areas that this book dwells on are Anatomy, Pharmacology and therapeutics, Dermatology, Parasitology, Anesthesia, Mental health, Ophthalmology, Otorhinolaryngology, Othropedics/trauma, General surgery, Internal medicine, and General pediatrics.
Creating this book was a challenge on two fronts viz.: What to include and who to target. After achieving the major milestone of what to cover in pre-clinical sciences and clinical sciences I had to decide what topics in the selected specialties should make it into this book. It is these two considerations under “What to include” that led to the 1200 MCQs with each chapter having the allotted number of questions based on the author’s judgment on weighting. With respect to who to target the difficulty arose from fact that the contents target first-year to final-year medical students and at the same time aim at post-graduate trainees, especially in family medicine. The family medicine resident’s wide scope is covered but the depth required of residents in other specialties could not be achieved in this single volume. Medical students in the pre-clinical years will benefit greatly from the pre-clinical subject MCQs; medical students in the clinical years have their needs covered as the book covers the typical curriculum to a reasonable extent. Residents will find this book invaluable as the graded questions meet the need of refreshing their memory on pre-clinical subjects as well as challenging their analytical power through certain MCQs in the clinical areas.
To every user this book is useful as there are not only answers to the questions but also comments that vary in length; the comments may provide reasons for the chosen answers and, in some instances, simply additional information on the topics that the MCQs address. The multiple-choice questions, their answers, and accompanying comments are intended to guide the reader to seek for more facts on the chosen topics especially as the topics were carefully selected to address the common and “inescapable” issues that medical students encounter in the pre-clinical years and at clinics and ward rounds in the clinical years and thereafter. For the resident in family medicine demonstrating ignorance of the answers to some of the contents of this book could be “unforgivable” especially at the oral examinations.
This is a veritable book to go through at least once.
