About the Course
From now, this website is obsolete and will shortly be taken down. We have a new and much-improved website which can be found here.
The 2022 Part 1 Course will run from Monday 27th June to 8th July 2022.
Applications for the face-to-face course are closed. However, we will continue to accept applications for the virtual course until we are actually running.
This year there will be several changes to the way we are running the course. The main changes will be that we will prioritise NZ candidates for this course, due to COVID travel restrictions, and that online virtual access will be available for the very first time.
Introduction and Overview:
The Waikato Hospital Part 1 FANZCA Course is an annual, two-week course designed to help prepare candidates to pass the Primary FANZCA examination. The course consists of a mixture of lectures, practical demonstrations, interactive group sessions and tutorials. Interspersed with this are frequent simulated examinations, both written and oral. The course assumes that you already know the main syllabus points: we have a strong focus on exam technique and practice which requires a good working knowledge already.
Please see “Latest News” for further information, and please check this website frequently for updates and changes. As in previous years, the course fee is NZ$3000 for those attending in person. The virtual fee will be $500.
If you are attending the course, please read this website thoroughly. All the information you need is here, but each year we have candidates who stumble because they have missed some of it.
You can receive automatic email updates if you Follow the course, which you can do by clicking on the link somewhere on this page which says “Follow”. This link is in a different place on each browser type.
Course Format:
The course is designed to give candidates the very best chance of passing the Primary FANZCA examination. Some of the course comprises syllabus content, although the syllabus is huge, and we cannot expect to cover it all. We do, however, attempt to concentrate on what we think are the most important areas; areas which are generally poorly tackled in the exam, or generally poorly understood by the candidates.
In addition, a great deal of our content is geared toward practice for the actual examination. This content focuses on developing good examination technique, and in simulating the actual examination: written, MCQ and viva components. Face-to-face candidates will normally have daily viva practice and daily short-answer question (SAQ) practice (which we will mark and return).
We strive to make the standard of our practice examinations match the actual standard of the exam itself. The course is intensive and the standard is high. We attempt to provide all candidates with detailed feedback on their performance in the course as a means of focusing their effort for the actual examination. Unfortunately we don’t anticipate being able to provide any online exam practice for our virtual attendees, but we do have some things we can offer instead, which we think are better than nothing.
We expect all candidates to attend all parts of the course. Obviously those virtual attendees have flexibility to attend whenever they like.
Who is eligible?
The course is open to anaesthetic trainees from New Zealand, Australia or Asia who intend to attempt the Primary FANZCA examination in the near future. The course has 20 places.
We will only accept applicants who are registered to attempt the exam at the next sitting (August 2022). We believe our course is very good at getting people “up to speed” in time for the exam, but we recognise that the momentum drops off quickly without the fear of the exam to spur you on.
We usually have many more applicants than places, so we usually give priority to people who haven’t been on other courses, and we would not usually allow you to attend this course more than once. This year we will give priority to NZ trainees when applying.
Venue:
There has been a last-minute change. The Course will now run in the Anaesthetic Department Teaching Room, on Level 4 of the Waiora Building (see campus map). We will put up signs on the day. The best way to get in is the ED entrance. Don’t go to the Library on Day 1!
This is a dedicated room which is available to us for the duration of the course, which is equipped with computer projection facilities. Each candidate can occupy their own desk space for the duration of the course. The Anaesthetic Department is adjacent.
We will provide lunch each day, as well as nibbles at break times.
Teaching Content:
We strive to provide candidates with all of the teaching content in the course. Both in-person and virtual attendees will (we hope) receive access to recordings of all the lecture material, which they may then re-watch at their leisure. This should free up candidates from the need to write down every single fact, and concentrate only on the important detail. We will also provide access to course files via Microsoft Teams.
We provide each candidate with a lever-arch file, a pad of A4 paper, and a pen.
Evolution:
The format of the examination evolves year by year. Our course is constantly changing to meet the needs of candidates and we collect detailed feedback on every single component of the course to ensure that the standard is always high.
This year, for the first time, we are expecting to be able to provide virtual access to all of our lecture content and most of our tutorial content.
If you have a problem during the course, speak to one of the course organisers and we will do our best to sort it out. The feedback we have received about the course has been very favourable.
How to Prepare for the Course:
While we hope that all of our candidates will be successful in the exam itself, this course cannot pass the exam for you. There is no shortcut for studying the syllabus and working hard for several months before the exam itself. Therefore we cannot recommend highly enough that you have already studied all the major areas of the syllabus before you attend the course.
You may also find it helpful to read this.
Waikato Part 1 Course 