Panhellenic Health Sciences common mistakes
Panhellenic Health Sciences · Understand the traps and how to avoid them.
When asked which structure separates the thoracic cavity from the abdominal cavity, choosing the parietal pleura or the abdominal wall instead of naming the diaphragm as the boundary.
Candidates memorize organ lists per body system but never build a mental map of body cavities and their boundaries, so boundary questions collapse into guessing among familiar-sounding membranes.
What to do instead
Draw a labeled sagittal outline of the trunk once per study session and place the diaphragm, mediastinum, pleurae, and peritoneum on it; then self-test with boundary questions ('what lies immediately above/below this line?') rather than organ-list questions.
Answering infection-control questions by choosing the most thorough-sounding option (e.g., alcohol rub before and after gloves for a spore-forming organism) rather than matching the option to the specified organism and situation.
Candidates learn hand-hygiene and PPE rules as a single block of 'always do more' and do not link specific pathogens (C. difficile spores, norovirus, multidrug-resistant organisms) to the specific agent or precaution required.
What to do instead
Build a three-column table: organism or situation, correct hand-hygiene agent, correct precaution type. Drill it until each row is recallable, and for every practice question first name the organism or scenario aloud before reading the options.
Calculating a weight-based or infusion-rate dose correctly but then selecting an answer option that ignores the prescribed maximum dose, concentration limit, or the unit in which the answer is requested (mg versus mL, per hour versus per minute).
Candidates rehearse the arithmetic in isolation and skip the final verification step, so they do not notice that the computed number exceeds a stated ceiling or is expressed in the wrong unit.
What to do instead
Adopt a fixed three-line written routine for every calculation: (1) convert all units to the target unit first, (2) compute, (3) check against any stated maximum and re-read the unit in the question stem. Practice under this routine until it is automatic.
On patient-assessment items, choosing an intervention (positioning, oxygen, calling for help) before identifying and stating the abnormal finding that the question is actually testing.
Candidates read the scenario as a 'what do you do next' emergency prompt and jump to action, missing that the stem asks for the assessment finding, the priority problem, or the first step of the assessment sequence.
What to do instead
Before reading the options, write one sentence: 'The question is asking me to identify ___ .' If the stem asks for a finding, eliminate every option that is an action; if it asks for a first action, eliminate every option that is a finding.
Treating consent, capacity, confidentiality, and mandatory-reporting questions as general ethics and picking the 'most respectful' or 'most cautious' option instead of applying the specific legal rule the scenario triggers.
Candidates study these topics as values and attitudes rather than as rule sets with defined thresholds (e.g., emergency exception to consent, minor consent, duty to report), so answers default to intuition.
What to do instead
For each topic, write the rule as a one-line decision test ('Is there an immediate threat to life? If yes, treat under the emergency exception; if no, obtain consent'). Apply the written test to ten short scenarios and note which single fact in each scenario flips the answer.
Confusing the three levels of prevention, labeling a screening program or a rehabilitation service as primary prevention.
Candidates learn the definitions once and never practise sorting real services, so the boundary between preventing onset (primary), detecting early (secondary), and limiting disability (tertiary) blurs under exam pressure.
What to do instead
Sort a list of 30 real services (immunization, mammography, cardiac rehab, smoking-cessation counseling, contact tracing) into the three levels and justify each in one clause; re-sort a week later without looking at the answers.
Building a medical term from its parts but reversing the order of the combining forms or misreading a suffix, producing a plausible but wrong meaning (e.g., reading '-ectomy' as incision or '-ostomy' as removal).
Candidates memorize whole words as vocabulary rather than practising the suffix-first decoding habit, so similar suffixes are stored as a fuzzy cluster.
What to do instead
Decode unfamiliar terms aloud in a fixed order: suffix, then prefix, then root. Keep a running two-column list of easily confused suffixes (-ectomy, -otomy, -ostomy, -plasty, -pexy) and test yourself by writing the meaning before checking.
In emergency and critical care scenarios, selecting a definitive treatment (drug, defibrillation, intubation) as the 'first action' when the correct first action is a recognition or safety step such as checking responsiveness, calling for help, or starting compressions.
Candidates associate emergency questions with dramatic interventions and skip the ordered algorithm, forgetting that sequence is what the question is testing.
What to do instead
Memorize each relevant algorithm as a numbered sequence and, for every practice scenario, write the sequence number of the correct step next to your chosen answer; if you cannot assign a number, you are guessing.
Answering health-information and digital-literacy items by choosing the option that sounds most secure or most modern (e.g., assuming any password-protected portal is compliant, or that a well-designed website is a reliable source) without applying the stated criteria.
Candidates lack a concrete checklist for evaluating sources and systems, so they substitute impressions of professionalism or technical sophistication for evidence.
What to do instead
Write and memorize two short checklists: one for evaluating a source (author credentials, date, citations, purpose, peer review) and one for information-security scenarios (who is authorized, what is the minimum necessary data, is the transmission encrypted). Apply the checklist item by item to each option.
Spending disproportionate time on calculation or terminology items and leaving scenario-based items unanswered, or changing correct first-pass answers on review without a specific reason drawn from the stem.
Candidates misjudge the difficulty distribution, over-invest in items that feel solvable, and treat answer-changing as diligence rather than as a decision that needs evidence.
What to do instead
Do a timed full-length practice run and record time per item; set a rule to flag and move on after 90 seconds. On review, change an answer only if you can cite the exact word in the stem that supports the change, and log every change with its outcome to see whether your changes help or hurt.