Bismillah Ar-Rahman Ar-Raheem

There’s already so much guidance on schedules and time duration of the prep you should be doing for
part1. Here’s my take on how one should prepare for ENT. I’m no expert and there’s no right or wrong
way for the prep. You do what suits you best. Consult other guidance posts and check what you could do
better. Remember that everyone starts on a different level. Some people already have good basics and
some have just barely made it through medschool. If you’re taking more time than others, it doesn’t
matter as long as you realistically evaluate yourself and get the job done.

I’m writing all this for FRESH CANDIDATES who want to give it a fair shot and have ample time. I don’t
believe in rattafying answers to mcqs. First Aid is the best book ever, keep consulting it on a regular basis.
People who’ve read FA during MLE prep already have the upper hand. I hadn’t touched it previously and
I felt like I was at a major loss. Suffice to say it’s the bible for this exam.

About FCPS PART-1 exam: The exam will test your memory more than anything. Simple stuff like what
passes through foramen ovale could be asked. Sometimes they’d give a scenario regarding electrolyte
depletion. There’s a wide array of concepts and rattafication you need to go through for this. Don’t get
intimidated by the study material but don’t take it too lightly as well. Remember that your goal is to clear
it in one go.

BOOKS REQUIRED:
FA
BRS physio
Pathoma (You just need to watch a couple of videos from here)
Kaplan Neuroanatomy
Snell review for thorax anatomy,
Big snell for H&N anatomy
ENT Dhingra (for Anatomy and physio only)
Tanveer notes (Session 12 and topics before session 1 only)

Past papers:
Rabia Ali (aka RA, borrow one from a senior)
ENT nigar book (buy the latest one)
SK GOLDEN 9+10 with errata. The whole book.
Make sure you go through the latest past papers. Can do more past papers if you have time but I suggest
it’s better to revise old stuff than to do new stuff.

TIMING: 4 months. Yes, a lot of ppl prefer 3 months, but those 3 months mean at least 5-8 hours studying
from day 1. You can’t get into that pace suddenly, so I suggest start studying 4 months prior to the test.
Start with 2 hours daily and gradually increase the time. Take breaks and use any study method you like.
Just make it a habit that you need to get a certain amount of studying in a day. Prepare time tables if you
want to. Somedays you won’t be able to study at all so 4 months’ time including those off days are
sufficient to get you through. I didn’t work while I studied so I can’t give an opinion whether one should
work or not.
1. Start with physio BRS and check out diagrams from FA. Give it a month. This is important because
physio has the most concepts and it takes time going through them. Use youtube videos and
attempt questions at the end of the topic. Read their explanations. Rabia ali with the errata can
be used to getter better know-how of the topic. Make sure that by the end of first month your
study times is 6 hours minimum, daily.

2. Patho. For ENT you need to know specific patho mentioned in the syllabus which you can search
on the group. This is usually the first 6-7 chapters from BRS patho. But you’ll do patho from
Pathoma and FA. I don’t recommend BRS patho. It sucks. Get done with it in 15 days max. Watch
pathoma vids and make notes on FA. Read them again at the end of the day. Every topic you do
needs to be practiced from RA mcqs. I’m not asking you to all the mcqs but just enough so you
know what is important and can appear in the exam.

3. Start with anatomy. Thorax from Snell review. Open the Anatomy atlas and look at the diagrams
and try to draw and visualize the thorax arterial, venous and and nervous supply. Check out
selfless medicose on youtube as someone else mentioned in this group previously. Get done with
it in 3 days max with RA mcqs.

4. Then start Kaplan neuroanatomy with RA mcqs. Watch Najeeb’s at 1.5x for brainstem, UMN and
LMN lesions, cranial nerves specially 7th,8th,5th, Cavernous sinus, middle ear, inner ear etc. Don’t
watch them if you feel like you can do better with just reading but I suggest you do. Do RA mcqs.
Give neuroanatomy a week. Check out Ninja nerd on youtube if you want an alternate for najeeb’s
long lectures. You should be good at neuroanatomy.

5. Start Head and neck from Big snell and keep checking diagrams. Do RA mcqs. A lof of your ENT
anatomy will be covered from here as well. This is an important topic. You should know the
branches of CCA, circle of willis, branches of maxillary artery, course and lesion of CN3,5,7, 10
salivary glands with their duct course and duct epithelium, Vagal nerve branches, nerves coming
out of different foramen etc. Do this properly and you won’t regret because the exam may have
questions like which structure crosses auriculotemporal nerve when it emerges from
infratemporal fossa? Answer is middle meningeal artery. Selfless medicose can save you from a
lot of trouble so check her out. Cover Dhingra’s Anatomy and physio portions along with this so
you can get done with that as well. After snell, these few pages will seem like a light read. Vocal
cord’s various positions due to nerve damageand lymph node drainage of ENT is a high yield topic.
Check it out. Give it good time so you have a good grip of H&N and ENT.

6. H&N embryo and histo should be learnt especially pharyngeal arches, pouches, aortic sinus
derivatives, cleft lip and palate, epithelium of ENT etc All of this is given in first chapters of Nigar.

7. LAST 30-35 days: Start with past papers now EVEN IF YOU HAVEN’T DONE THE WHOLE THEORY.
Try to do as many as you can but double check the answers. I used SK 9+10 and Nigar’s ENT. Nigar
is very important for ENT. Try doing them from backwards. There are some mistakes in Nigar
which you’ll point out yourself if you’ve done anatomy properly. Don’t worry if you don’t seem to
know the answers. Search on the FCPS group and read what is being asked in the mcq from a
book. The last month is purely for past papers. Along with past papers, dedicate 2 hours to skim
through microbio. My exam had a lot of microbio so you need to know which organisms are
catalase positive/negative, most common causes of various infections (this keeps on repeating on
 exam), common ENT bugs like diptheria and pneumonia. FA is the best source for minors so keep
looking at it.

8. For other minors like pharma, biochem and community medicine, FA should be enough. Read the
pharma drugs in each unit in FA whenever you’re doing patho or physio from FA. Cover embryo
of systems from the text that’s written in FA only.

About tanveer notes: Read the pages just before the first session. People say that one should go through
session 12 as well. Read it in very last days. Some say rafiullah is better, but I won’t know since I never
studied from it.

Additional material you can find on the FCPS group:

In the end: You may not be able to follow this or any other guideline to the very last dot. Don’t stress
yourself about it, trust yourself and give it your all. A major part of your result has to do with your mom
so make sure she is happy with you and prays for you. Eat healthy and take enough breaks but get done
with whatever you were supposed to do in a day. Try to follow the timetables you made for yourself.
Remember this exam ain’t shit! You can do this if you put in hard work. Pray Tahajjud on nights you can
(it’s the best thing that will save you in the end). I wish you the very best!!

-Fizza Qambar