Amigun Adebimpe’s PLAB 2 Experience
(This post was originally published on 5th July 2016. It was added to my blog by taking permission from the writer. Thank you, Dr. Amigun Adebimpe, for allowing me to add your post to this blog)
DR OMAR AY (KNOWN AS OMARS GUIDELINES) KINDLY ASKED ME TO SHARE MY EXPERIENCE WITH YOU ALL. HOPE IT HELPS TO CHOOSE YOUR ACADEMY:
I have attended both academies so I guess I am in a position to comment on what you have shared with us. To be honest with you I do not agree with what you have written.
I don’t think one can compare Dr Hamed’s course with Samson at all, because:
1- Plab 2 is about how NHS works. Dr Hamed works for the NHS while Samson is not.
2-Dr Hamed is teaching all the subjects by himself, knows his students by name, knows their weaknesses and strengths and he is the only one who is updated with exam changes and guidelines. In Samson all the teachers were those who have just passed the exam.
3-Dr Hamed was the first one who introduced “PRACTICE SESSIONS”, during those 5 whole days, they supervised, corrected and assessed us while we were practising. Not only we were assessed on a daily basis during the practice session, but we also had a full mock conducted by Dr Hamed himself, who taught us for 12 consecutive days, Dr Elmira who taught us and supervised us for examinations for 6 days and another who taught us and supervised us manikins for 6 days.
In Samson the mocks were held by those who have just passed their exams and we didn’t know any of them. How they can give us a proper feedback?!!!
I didn’t benefit from the 5 mocks at Samson at all but 5 days of daily assessment and mock at Hamed were extremely helpful for us.
The feedback was very well detailed, one to one and was very productive. They were super encouraging which was completely different from the discouraging feedback u get at samson!
4- Hard to believe, but we used to clear our doubts and our confusions at Samson by asking them from repeaters who were practising with us, while in common stations we had our TEACHERS in the class and during the practical sessions. They were always available and ready to help which was a bonus to the course.
5- It was mentioned that at Dr Hamed, examinations and manikins are taught by his recently passed students. This is also not true, for example; Dr Elmira has been teaching examinations and taking supervised practice sessions since last year and she is currently working in the NHS. She is extremely knowledgable, skilled and experienced in what she is doing. We found her as good and supportive as Dr Hamed.
6- With regards to the notes, Dr Hamed notes are dynamic. He keeps changing his notes based on exam changes and new guidelines.
You mentioned that we have to write down Hx and Cx and considered it as a negative point! Don’t you think dr Hamed can NOT print his notes and give it to his students? Don’t you think that there is a reason behind this? He could have simply done that and of course it would have been much easier for him and of course less stressful for him!
Only us, his students, know the reason behind it, and we highly appreciate it! We only realised it when we left the GMC building after our exam! So I believe you are not in a position to comment on something which you have no clue and experience about!
7- With regards to class timing, we used to finish around 9:30pm but we learnt so many points and tips which I have not heart at Samson. If he wanted to teach only from 9am to 7pm with 2-3 hours break like Samson, his course will take forever and no one can afford it. Not even a single sentence that he taught us was useless. At Samson not sufficient amount of information is given for each and every station. You were the lucky one if you didn’t face it in your exam, but I did and I lost the game! 
8- Regarding their pass rate, Dr Hamed never advertises his pass rate but it is by far more than any other place. In our batch out of more than 60 people, I only heard about 2 guys who couldn’t clear their exams while at Samson in our group of 25, almost half of us failed and still he claims the pass rate of 97%!!! 
Dr Hamed hasn’t got an attractive and fascinating website or secretary, maybe he should attract more people like Samson 
9- One of the points that you were absolutely right about is that Dr Hamed has got the GMC’s Simman. No academy, including Samson got this Simman. At Samson the Simman was different from what I saw in my exam that’s why I was struggling to check the pulse and BP . You may think that it was my fault but pulse in Simman is not placed in the right anatomical area and different Simman has different futures so you must practise on Simman which is same as what you will see in the exam .I failed a very simple stations because of this.
10- please don’t take it personal, if I disagree with you. I don’t blame you, because you have not attended dr Hamed and obviously your feedback won’t be as expected.
I’m sure if you were his student, you would have agreed with me.