Hey guys and welcome to this video. I'm Prateek and in this video we're going to be looking at
ways for you to ace your situational judgement test. In this video, we're going to be looking at what the
situation judgment test is, the types of questions that you can expect to find in it and also
some hints and tips to get you through the situational judgment test during the COVID
pandemic. The situational judgment test is a test that is used when you apply for dental core
training or foundation dentistry. It's a method of assessing an individual's character and it's part
of the application process. Unfortunately, situational judgement tests are notoriously difficult to do
well. Before I go on in this video, obviously a lot of this is still very, very fluid because of
the COVID pandemic, so it's important that you constantly check the COPDEND website. This year
for the application this test is more important than previous years because it forms a greater
basis for your overall rank. This year for example with dental core training the situational judgment
test makes up 33% of your mark. If you want to know a bit more about the application process itself
I've done another video on this so please make sure you go and check that out. One of the reasons
situational judgment tests can be particularly difficult is the correct answer for each question
is created by a panel of professionals or a group of professionals and it takes the average answer
that that group gives. So what you might give as what you think is the correct answer may not align
with what this group has given. This year with the COVID pandemic, the situational judgment test
is either going to be done at home or it may be done at a Pearson Vue testing centre. Like
I've mentioned situational judgment test isn't a test of clinical knowledge, it is more a test of
assessing you as a character and your professional attributes. The aspects and attributes that are
being assessed to the situational judgment test include your professionalism, decision making, your
ability to provide patient-centred care, your ability to cope under pressure and also your
critical thinking skills. There are generally two types of questions in the situational judgment
test. The first question is rank in order the following responses to a particular situation. So you are
given five options and you need to rank these from most appropriate, first answer, to least appropriate.
Some important things to consider with this question is each item and each answer should be
treated independently. In terms of my strategy for answering this type of question: usually
when you look at the answers there is one really obvious correct answer or the most correct answer
and there is one really obvious most inappropriate answer and so I would usually put the most
appropriate answer and the least appropriate answer and then look at filling in the gap in
between. This is also important when you think about the marking. If you put the correct order
of letters you get four marks for each correct one so that's a total of 20 marks. For every position
off you are from the correct order, you lose a mark so that means if you get the most appropriate
and the least appropriate answers in the wrong position, they have the biggest chance of losing
you marks. So here we have an example so the question scenario is this a - '28 year old patient
Amba attends for a crown fit. When you've replaced Amba's temporary crown with a permanent one you
show Amba the final result in the mirror. However, Amba starts to cry and say it looks awful change
it the temporary crown was better' and we have the five options that are presented. So these options
are 'Advise Amba to wear the crown for 10 days before returning to discuss how she is feeling'. If
we considered this option it's not great because you're not dealing with Amba's frustration
by sending her away with the crown that she's not happy with. So it wouldn't be going as my most or
least appropriate I'd probably go somewhere in the middle at this point. We have option B which
is 'Seek advice from your educational supervisor'. Again this is not a bad response - it does mean
though that you're already seeking help rather than considering the situation yourself so it's
not towards the latter half of your order it would be towards the top but probably still not the most
appropriate. Then we have option C 'Tell Amba that if she wants a better crown she will have to have
this done privately'. Now immediately as soon as I read this I'm putting this as my least
appropriate option because it doesn't deal with Amba's problem and also you're offering something
privately which really probably shouldn't be private. Now we have option D which is 'Review the
before and after photographs of Amba highlighting the improvement'. Again not a bad option you're
dealing with this yourself, you're understanding amber's concern but you're trying to highlight the
difference between before and after as patients may not realise this. So again I'd probably put
this towards the top half of my answers and then we have option E which is 'Allow Amba to calm
herself before exploring the feelings about the crown in more depth'. Immediately I will be putting
this as the most appropriate option because you are understanding that Amba's not happy about
something and this means then you can try and deal with the problem and rectify it for them. So we've
already looked at the most appropriate and least appropriate and now I have the gap in between to
fill. If you look back at the options like I said the fitting the crown for 10 days and asking to
come back doesn't seem like a really good option for me so I'd probably put this second to last.
Now we have the options B and D. These are probably the ones that I'd get most likely confused with. In
all honesty looking at these options I would probably choose D as my second most appropriate
option because I'm still taking ownership of the situation and I'm trying to rectify it with the
patient. My middle option would probably be B I'd speak to my supervisor. You have to remember that
when you're answering these questions you have to think in the mind of a foundation dentist or
a dental core trainee so you have supervisors available - you're not expected to be competent
at everything and so often asking for help or speaking to a supervisor may not necessarily be
the best option but it is going to be up there. If we look at the final order we've got E D B A and C.
Now if we compare it to the correct order that is the answer that is stated and you can pause
and read the description there. If you were to mark this you would get 20 marks because every letter
is in the correct position however let's look at a scenario where we mix the letters up. So now
I'm going to mix those two letters up that I was a bit unsure about so we can see that the second and
third letters are in the wrong position. So they're one off their correct position and if you look at
the marks scheme, you will see that we would get three marks for each of these answers so in total you
would get 18 marks for this question. The second type of question is where you have to choose
the three most appropriate linked answers to a situation. If you remember like I mentioned in the
first type of question we treat each answer as an independent answer but in this question we have to
choose the three actions that when linked together are the most appropriate response to a situation.
For each correct answer you get four marks - this means that it can often be a bit more difficult
to pick up marks on these questions because if you get one of these wrong you get nothing for
it. As compared to the first type of question where if you're maybe a couple of letters off you still
may pick up marks. Again let's look at a practice question to see how to answer these. The scenario
that is presented to us is 'You are replacing a broken filling for an anxious patient. During the
procedure, the dental nurse stops you. She tells you that the patient is not coping well with
the procedure and is becoming increasingly upset and agitated. You were not aware the patient was
in distress' and so now we're given eight options and we have to choose the three most appropriate
linked options. If we look at the options we have 'Discuss with the patient what is distressing them',
'Apologise to the patient if you have caused him any distress', 'Advise the dental nurse following the
consultation not to question your work in front of the patient in the future', 'Ask the dental nurse how
you should proceed', 'Ask your educational supervisor to take over the procedure', 'Ask the patient whether
he would like you to continue with the procedure', 'Inform the dental nurse that the patient does not
seem distressed to you', 'Reflect on why you did not notice that the patient was agitated and upset
following the consultation'. Immediately some of these we can rule out. If we look at the option of
asking the nurse how to proceed - it's not the nurse's job to determine how you proceed. It is
you - it's your responsibility so immediately this isn't an appropriate action so we can remove this.
So then option C - advising the dental nurse isn't really helpful because you're not dealing with the
problem then and there. Asking the educational supervisor again okay you're dealing with
the procedure being carried out but you've not explored the patient's concerns, you've not dealt
with the distress and you're not learning anything from it you're essentially giving up, abandoning
the procedure and getting a supervisor to take over. Option G, informing the dental nurse that
the patient doesn't seem distressed I don't think is very good again because you're dismissing the
dental nurse's concern and also you're potentially dismissing the patient's concern. So this leaves us
with four options all of these would seem relatively appropriate answers in my view
but we have to consider which three of these when linked together would be the most appropriate way
to proceed. And if I look at these three options, the one option that is standing out to me is not
quite fitting in with the others is apologising to the patient because if you look at the wording of
the scenario, and wording is really important with these questions, you are not aware that the patient
is in distress and apologising unnecessarily isn't going to gain anything and it may in
fact undermine the patient's confidence in you. So if I think about it and I look at the other
three options, it seems like a relatively logical order of response so I would discuss with the
patient what is distressing them. Because this would confirm whether they are being distressed
or not. I would then ask them do they want me to carry on - again this is dealing with their concern
because if they are distressed they may not want you to so you're dealing with this and then you're
also reflecting. This is the answer again the explanation is there if you want to read it. So if
we were to mark this, it would be 12 marks. So we've looked at the two main types of questions and a
couple of examples relating to them but now let's look at some important hints and tips on how you
can try and maximise your score. The first thing is making sure you read all the relevant resources.
This isn't a test of your clinical knowledge, it's a test of your professional attributes so looking
at your professional documentation - your GDC standards, scope of practice, your FGDP guidelines.
All of these are far more important. If you are sitting the SJT's from home then it's really
important that you check your laptop is compatible and is working properly with the software.
Ensure your environment is also appropriate with no distractions and you're in a quiet room so that
you're not affected by any other noise. You most likely will also have to show your room to the
examiner and make sure therefore that it is clean and there's no one else sat in this room because
there is a risk that you may be cheating if they are there. The next tip which I've alluded to is
reading the question carefully. Wording is really important in these types of questions. For example
there's a practice question where a patient presents with an ulcer and one of the options
is that you tell the patient that it MAY be oral cancer. That is a very big difference from
an answer that says it IS oral cancer because the connotations from both of them are very
different so look at the wording and pay careful attention to the wording. One of the big things
that often a lot of people struggle with these types of questions is when you're answering them
you're not answering them in a real world type situation. You're answering them from
an idealistic situation. A lot of us have been in some of these situations - you may have been through
them in dental school or in your foundation year and your response would have been very different
to what actually the question is looking for. But you need to change your mindset and you need to
think what would happen in an ideal world. The next tip is depending on the level at which
you're sitting it you're only expected to have the level of knowledge and competency as that level of
application. So if you're applying for foundation dentistry, you're only expected in the questions to
have that level of knowledge and competency. Next always put the patient's best interests first. As
we looked in the example of Amba with the crown, the most appropriate options were those where we
are discussing with the patient their concern we're putting their interests first. The last
big tip and this is something that I found particularly difficult sitting situational
judgment tests is the problem with time. You're often very pressurised in terms of
answering these questions in a set time period. This is why the hints and tips I mentioned earlier
on in terms of picking the most appropriate and the least appropriate and filling them in or
getting rid of answers that you know right off the bat aren't correct helps speed things up for you.
I would try not to sit and ponder on a question too long because it may mean that I missed three
or four questions later on. It's true a lot of people say you can't practice for a situational
judgement test. I agree to that to a degree but you can practice how to deal with these questions in a
timely manner and also simply how to answer these questions in a certain format. This is
where practicing becomes really important and you can take a huge amount of value from practicing
both dental and medical questions because the principles are the same. This leads me onto the
resources that I'd like to recommend to you these include the Dental Foundation Interview Guide, The
Foundation Programme online practice papers that are available, Oxford Assess and Progress and
the 250 SJTs for Foundation Year Entry. I hope you found this useful - if you did please like, comment,
subscribe and hit the notification bell. If you do have any suggestions or any questions please leave
a comment or contact me on one of the social media handles. My recommendation in this video
is the Scottish Dental Clinical Effectiveness Programme or SDCEP. They provide a huge number
of resources and guidelines for dentists to follow in day-to-day practice - again links are
in the description. Please make sure to check them out. If you are sitting the dental core training
application and situational judgment tests this year then good luck. I will be putting some more
videos up in order to help with the application process so stay tuned for them - till then take care.