It took me some time to review the Birmingham PLAB Course Teaching DVD, principally because each time I put it into my DVD player, I either lost the will to live, or fell asleep. It's hard to imagine anything more boring or repetitive, unless you are familiar with Big Brother or “I'm a celebrity, get me out of here”. To be fair, the production isn't aimed at an opinionated consultant who knows everything that there is to know about everything, but rather is directed at those sitting the PLAB Part 2 (OSCE). The Series 3 DVD covers Resuscitation and practical procedures using manikin simulations in scenarios which the candidate will apparently encounter in the examination. The DVD starts promisingly enough with an introduction followed by practical demonstration of basic life support in adult and child using a resuscitation dummy and following the Resuscitation Council UK standard. These sections set out the principles of basic life support clearly, but the demonstration itself is at a level that I would expect of my first aid volunteers, not qualified doctors looking to join the NHS. There then follow chapters on blood sampling, venepuncture, cervical smear, pelvic, breast and rectal examination, catheterisation, suturing, ear examination, arterial blood sampling, and the use of a volumetric spacer device for inhalers. It's pretty dull, with straight to camera demonstrations by medical staff, who could have benefited enormously from a little media coaching, or possibly a dry run or two. If you need to be reminded of your early life in medical school when an uncertain SHO was sent to take a tutorial, without the benefit of prior preparation time, then you've got the flavour of this DVD. Ditching the suits might have made it look a little more relaxed, and the occasionally demonstrated sweating foreheads made one feel that one was watching real PLAB candidates in test conditions. The production was developed with the aid of a Hospital medical illustration department, so it hardly needs saying that the technical aspects are as one would expect with variable sound levels, wobbly yet stationary camera angles, a clip on microphone whose cable was too short, little or no post production editing and few uses of the many features of the average amateur video camera, to enliven the action. Occasional changes of camera angle, close ups or an illustration or two could have transformed the experience. The sections in which an instructor attempts to describe internal examinations whilst standing in a suit with a hand inside a plastic dummy could certainly have done with a bit of brightening up. Each of the demonstrations include live talks to camera, which are unscripted and could benefit from an overdubbed commentary or a summary of the important teaching points. Whilst the DVD would undoubtedly reassure nervous candidates prior to an examination, it is difficult to believe that any will actually learn from it. Even I found over 5 minutes on a volumetric spacer device something of a challenge. Apparently this is only one of a series of three DVDs for PLAB candidates, the others covering Surgical and Orthopaedic examinations (Series 1) and Medical examinations (series 2). The one positive note must surely be that if these folk could pass PLAB, and produce a DVD, then there must be hope for almost anyone. If the scenarios presented are an accurate reflection of the content of the PLAB OSCE examination, then it doesn't look like it should present much of a challenge to anyone who has successfully completed 3^rd year as a medical student. I can't say I would recommend anyone actually buy this DVD, but it might be useful to play it with your friends in the run-up to the PLAB just to confirm that you are ready. Alternatively if anyone has a couple of hours worth of unaired next door neighbours holiday videos they might find them more interesting.