UPMSP High School Health Care common mistakes
UPMSP High School Health Care · Understand the traps and how to avoid them.
Writing the normal adult ranges of temperature, pulse, respiration and blood pressure from memory without stating the site and method, then marking a reading as abnormal purely because it falls outside a single remembered number.
Candidates memorise one set of figures (for example 98.6°F or 72 beats per minute) as if they were fixed constants, but the syllabus expects them to know that axillary temperature runs lower than oral, that pulse varies with age and activity, and that blood pressure is reported as systolic over diastolic with a cuff-size caveat. The habit forms because most revision notes present a single row of numbers.
What to do instead
Build a small table for each vital sign with columns for site or method, normal range, and factors that raise or lower it. Practise answering in the form 'reading, site, whether it is within normal limits for this age, and what to do next'. When a question gives an age or a site, state explicitly that the reference range shifts before judging the value.
Describing hand hygiene as 'wash hands before and after patient contact' and stopping there, without naming the moments, the duration of rubbing, or when alcohol-based rub is preferred over soap and water.
The five moments and the technique detail feel like rote list items, so candidates compress them into one sentence. They also confuse 'washing' with 'rubbing' and cannot say why soap and water is mandatory when hands are visibly soiled or after contact with a spore-forming organism such as Clostridioides difficile.
What to do instead
Memorise the five moments as short trigger phrases (before touching a patient, before a clean procedure, after body-fluid exposure risk, after touching a patient, after touching patient surroundings). Rehearse the technique as ordered steps with a stated duration, and make a two-column list of when alcohol rub is acceptable versus when soap and water is required.
Sorting biomedical waste into colour-coded bins by the material of the item (glass, plastic, paper) rather than by the hazard category the item carries.
Everyday recycling logic is deeply ingrained, and the colour codes look arbitrary until the candidate understands that the categories are defined by infectivity, sharps, cytotoxic contamination, and anatomical or chemical hazard. Candidates also forget that items such as used gloves, blood-soaked gauze and expired medicines go to different streams despite all being 'hospital rubbish'.
What to do instead
Learn each category by its defining hazard first, then attach the colour and the typical contents to it. Make a one-page chart with columns: category name, definition, examples, container colour, and treatment or disposal route. Test yourself by picking ten random items and assigning category and bin before checking.
Giving first aid as a list of actions in the wrong order, for example starting chest compressions before checking that the scene is safe and the casualty is unresponsive, or moving a suspected spinal-injury casualty to a comfortable position.
Candidates recall individual manoeuvres (compressions, recovery position, splinting) but not the sequence that governs when each is permitted. Examination scenarios reward the order of operations, and the instinct to 'do something quickly' overrides the safety and assessment steps that come first.
What to do instead
Learn a fixed action framework and apply it to every scenario: danger, response, shout for help, airway, breathing, circulation. For each scenario type, write the first three actions only, and check them against the framework. Treat any manoeuvre that could worsen injury, such as moving a suspected spinal casualty, as a decision point requiring justification rather than a default.
Confusing anatomy by position and function, for example describing the oesophagus as part of the airway, placing the stomach on the right side, or saying the left lung has three lobes.
Diagrams in textbooks are drawn facing the viewer, so left and right get mirrored in the candidate's memory. Organs with similar names or adjacent positions (trachea and oesophagus, ureter and urethra, small and large intestine) are learned as labels rather than as structures with a job, so the errors survive until examined.
What to do instead
Study each system by tracing a route (air from nose to alveoli, food from mouth to anus, urine from kidney to urethra) and state the function of each structure as you pass it. Use the 'anatomical right is the patient's right' rule aloud when reading any diagram, and draw each system once from memory with labels before revising it again.
Treating hygiene and sanitation answers as moral statements ('keep clean', 'maintain hygiene') instead of naming the specific measure, the agent or concentration, and the route of transmission being interrupted.
Everyday language about cleanliness is vague, and candidates reproduce that vagueness under time pressure. They do not connect a measure such as boiling water, chlorination at a stated dose, or safe disposal of faeces to the faecal-oral route it blocks, so answers sound correct but earn no marks for specificity.
What to do instead
For every sanitation topic, answer in three parts: the hazard or route of transmission, the measure, and the parameter (temperature and time for boiling, chlorine dose, distance of a soak pit from a well). Practise converting a vague sentence into a specific one, for example replacing 'drink safe water' with the exact household treatment method and contact time.
Answering nutrition questions with food names alone, without quantities, food groups or the age or condition of the person, and confusing deficiency diseases with each other.
Candidates learn 'iron for anaemia, vitamin A for eyes' as slogans and never attach the deficiency disease name, the clinical sign, or the vulnerable group. Because many deficiency signs overlap (pallor, poor growth, sore mouth), the slogans collapse under exam conditions.
What to do instead
Build a deficiency table with columns: nutrient, rich food sources, deficiency disease and its distinguishing sign, and the group most at risk. Add a separate column for locally available, affordable foods so the answer is practical. When a question names an age group, a pregnant woman or a patient, adjust the answer to that group explicitly.
Mixing up maternal and newborn danger signs, or giving a single referral answer without the immediate first-aid and transport steps, when a scenario describes bleeding after delivery, prolonged labour, or a newborn not breathing at birth.
The two sets of danger signs are taught close together and share words such as 'bleeding' and 'infection'. Candidates also treat referral as the whole answer, forgetting that the question is testing what is done in the minutes before and during transfer, including newborn resuscitation and keeping the baby warm.
What to do instead
Keep two separate lists, one for the mother and one for the newborn, and recite each aloud until they do not blend. For every scenario, answer in a fixed four-part form: recognise the sign, immediate action, refer to the appropriate facility, and care during transport. Practise newborn breathing support and thermal care as concrete steps with sequence.
Writing medicine answers that name a drug but omit dose, route, timing and the safety check, or that recommend a medicine outside the health worker's permitted scope.
Candidates revise drug names as vocabulary and treat dose and route as details to be supplied by someone else. They also do not know the difference between medicines a health worker may give under standing orders and those that require a prescriber, so they overreach in written answers.
What to do instead
For each medicine in the syllabus, record five items: indication, dose and route for an adult and for a child where relevant, contraindication or caution, and who may administer it. Add the five rights of administration as a checklist to quote. When a scenario is outside your permitted scope, state the correct action as recognising the need and referring, and say why.
Ignoring the ethical and communication layer of a scenario, for example revealing a patient's diagnosis to a relative who asks, or describing a bedside procedure without mentioning consent, privacy and dignity.
Candidates focus on the clinical task because it feels like the 'real' answer, and treat confidentiality, consent and respectful communication as optional decoration. In practice these are separately marked points, and a clinically correct answer that breaches confidentiality loses marks.
What to do instead
Before writing any patient-care answer, run a short checklist: consent obtained, privacy maintained, information shared only with those entitled to it, and the patient addressed respectfully. Practise short scenario answers that include one sentence on communication and one on confidentiality, and learn the exceptions to confidentiality so you can state them accurately rather than vaguely.