The Pre PACES Podcast aims to help you pass the devilishly difficult MRCP PACEs exam. We’ll provide the best expertise from both seasoned consultants who have examined on PACEs for years, as well as tips and tricks from junior doctors who are fresh out of sitting the exam. Most of all, we want you to enjoy listening and ultimately succeed in passing the exam. Best of luck!

Progressive exertional breathlessness needs timing, threshold and reproducibility defined before assuming airways disease or interstitial lung disease. This is strong revision for drug exposure, past jobs, home mould, birds, hobbies and persistent symptoms after pulmonary embolism.

A metallic valve sound with a sternotomy scar should trigger early localisation and complication screening. Breathlessness after valve replacement needs valve function, ventricular function, rhythm, inflammation and anticoagulation reviewed rather than a purely descriptive examination summary.

Work-related stress, over-preparation and silence in a new role can reflect more than poor confidence. This longer human-factors listen helps distinguish rational uncertainty from imposter phenomenon, and gives mentors concrete behaviours: stage-matched feedback, safe questions, visible uncertainty and specific praise.

When non-shockable arrest keeps running, leadership can matter as much as the next intervention. This is worth opening for named roles, closed-loop communication, when frailty and absent reversibility support stopping, and why a hot debrief still matters after return of spontaneous circulation or death.

Chest pain, atrial fibrillation, and borderline ECGs are the recurring problems in this short cardiology education listen. Structured case reconstruction after a referral or take decision can sharpen interpretation, escalation, and referral quality on the next shift.

The best first listen today. It keeps ward cardiac arrest practical: take the lead, get pads on early, identify the rhythm, and use the minutes before collapse to make the 4 Hs and 4 Ts clinically useful rather than a memory test.

Action before the phone call matters here. The episode shows how a better microbiology referral starts with first-hand assessment, early cultures, antibiotic history, and a working diagnosis, then shifts the conversation away from stronger antibiotics toward source control and organism coverage.

Start here if you want the best return on one listen today. It gives a headache history and triage structure that quickly separates routine headache from pregnancy headache with visual symptoms, cluster headache, giant cell arteritis, meningitis and cervical artery dissection.