Your guide to the Vivas

Refresh your browser updated 10th Feb 2008

You get 30 minutes per viva. Each viva is split into 2 parts.        

  • Academic ( 1 hour to read 2 papers. 15 minutes on a general paper and 15 minutes on your subspecialty paper)

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  • General & Subspecialty ( 15 minutes to discuss a minimum of 3 topics in general and your chosen subspecialty area)

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  • Critical care and emergency medicine (15 minutes to discuss a  minimum of 3 topics in general and your chosen subspecialty area)

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The following guide is meant to give you an insight into how a viva might take its course. If you were to go on a course they would give you a list of headings within a Powerpoint presentation. You may get lucky and have a few questions fired at you in the lecture, this sort of pressure is a taste of being all alone with your knowledge and the overwhelming expectation by everyone watching is that you know the answer.

 If you can get one of your colleagues who have sat the exam recently to put you in the driving seat, you will find out how much you really don’t know.

When reading the questions ask yourself….” Could I honestly answer this?”, and try and talk out aloud. The answers you give in your head are very different.