I passed PACES in November 2006. I am posting a copy of the (fairly comprehensive) notes that I made whilst preparing for this exam. In addition to bedside teaching I attended that PASTest (Hammersmith) and PACES Ahead (St Georges) courses and read Ryder and Baliga. These notes represent an aggregate of what I learnt. I can offer no guarantee as to accuracy or completeness, however I hope that others will find them useful. Feel free to add your comments.

For any condition it is essential that you have a logical framework for presentation of your findings. I would suggest the following:

1. On examination this lady coincidentally has … e.g. RA, goitre etc
2. The positive clinical findings are …
3. The most likely diagnosis is … if unsure the differential diagnois is …
4. Comment on severity / dominant lesion / functional status
5. Investigations: For each test say why it is needed e.g. FBC for anaemia, CXR for reticular shadowing...

When giving a differential diagnosis relate each condition to the patient and their clinical features and say how you would investigate further.

Below I give examples of using this framework with the most common conditions encountered in the exam. This is followed by summaries of the examination routines for each of the systems. These notes do not aim to provide an exhaustive list of all of the possible conditions that you can encounter - for this you will need to look at Baliga, Ryder etc - however it will cover a large proportion of exam cases.

Take a look at www.mrcp.org for further tips on passing PACES.