Clinical Officers Council Pre-Internship study guide
Clinical Officers Council Pre-Internship · Work through your exam, one topic at a time.
The Clinical Officers Council Pre-Internship Examination is the assessment that sits between completing a clinical officer training programme in Kenya and starting supervised internship practice. It is intended for newly qualified clinical officers who have finished their diploma or degree training and need to demonstrate that they can apply core clinical knowledge and practical skills safely before entering the internship year. The Clinical Officers Council Pre-Internship study guide has 12 sections and about 3,002 words.
01Internal Medicine: Structured Reasoning at the Bedside
Own a systematic approach to the major adult presentations: chest pain, breathlessness, oedema, fever, cough, weight loss, diarrhoea, jaundice, altered consciousness and raised blood pressure. For each, know the discriminating bedside findings and the confirmatory test.
307 words, about 2 min02Surgery: The Acute Abdomen and the Trauma Sequence
Surgical questions reward a disciplined sequence: resuscitate, diagnose, then definitive care. The primary survey (airway with cervical spine control, breathing, circulation with haemorrhage control, disability, exposure) applies to every injured patient.
263 words, about 1 min03Obstetrics and Gynaecology: Safe Motherhood Priorities
The exam expects structured thinking about antenatal care, the partograph, hypertensive disease of pregnancy, eclampsia, obstructed labour, postpartum haemorrhage, puerperal sepsis and abortion care. Know the components of focused antenatal care, the danger signs, and the partograph action line.
253 words, about 1 min04Paediatrics and Child Health: IMCI Thinking
Work through the IMCI framework: assess, classify, treat, counsel and follow up. Core topics are neonatal resuscitation and thermal care, danger signs in the newborn and young infant, pneumonia classification, diarrhoea managed with the WHO Plan A, B and C approach, malnutrition assessed by MUAC and oedema, growth monitoring, the immunisation schedule, and weight-based drug dosing.
257 words, about 1 min05Community Health and Public Health: Measurement and Control
Distinguish incidence (new cases over a period) from prevalence (all existing cases at a point in time), and rate from ratio. Understand sensitivity, specificity, predictive values, and how prevalence alters the positive predictive value.
245 words, about 1 min06Orthopaedics and Trauma: Limb Threats
Trauma follows the primary survey with catastrophic haemorrhage control and spinal precautions, then the secondary survey. Orthopaedic assessment describes fractures by site, pattern, displacement, angulation, rotation, and whether the injury is open or closed.
239 words, about 1 min07Psychiatry and Mental Health: Excluding the Organic
Record a full mental state examination: appearance, behaviour, speech, mood and affect, thought form and content, perception, cognition and insight. Know the presentation and first-line management of depression, psychosis, bipolar disorder, alcohol withdrawal, delirium and self-harm.
246 words, about 1 min08Ear, Nose and Throat and Ophthalmology: Red Flags
Eye: the red eye differential (conjunctivitis, keratitis, uveitis, acute angle-closure glaucoma, scleritis), sudden painless vision loss (retinal artery occlusion, vitreous haemorrhage, retinal detachment), ocular trauma including chemical and penetrating injury, and the major preventable causes of blindness. ENT: epistaxis control, otitis media and its complications, hearing loss assessed with tuning fork tests, vertigo, quinsy versus tonsillitis, and foreign bodies of the airway and oesophagus.
243 words, about 1 min09Dermatology: Morphology Before Diagnosis
Describe by morphology (macule, papule, plaque, vesicle, bulla, pustule, wheal, nodule), colour, distribution, arrangement and secondary change such as scale, crust, ulceration or lichenification. Then match the pattern: an annular scaly lesion with central clearing suggests tinea; flexural itching suggests eczema; grouped vesicles in a dermatome suggest herpes zoster; honey-crusted lesions suggest impetigo.
228 words, about 1 min10Anaesthesia, Emergency and Critical Care: First Minutes
Airway assessment (mouth opening, Mallampati, thyromental distance), ASA physical status, spinal versus general anaesthesia, and safe local anaesthesia including maximum doses. Emergency care covers triage, the ABCDE approach, shock types, the sepsis bundle, basic and advanced life support, and the Glasgow Coma Scale.
222 words, about 1 min11Ethics, Professionalism and Health Law: Consent, Confidentiality and Negligence
Consent must be informed, voluntary and given by a person with capacity, who can understand, retain, weigh and communicate the decision. Know how consent works in minors, in pregnancy and in emergencies.
247 words, about 1 min12Reproductive Health and HIV Medicine: Prevention and Treatment
Family planning: effectiveness, medical eligibility criteria and contraindications, and emergency contraception timing. HIV: natural history, counselling and testing, antiretroviral regimens, adherence support, viral load monitoring, prevention of mother-to-child transmission, post-exposure prophylaxis, cotrimoxazole prophylaxis for opportunistic infections, and syndromic management of sexually transmitted infections.
252 words, about 1 min