This document explains what this study pack is, what it is not, where its content came from, and how it should be used. Read it before relying on any specific number, dose, or trial citation in the corpus.
What this pack is
A personal study aid prepared for trainees sitting the Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists (ANZCA) Final Fellowship Examination and Primary Examination. It contains:
Practice viva and SAQ stems written to reflect the style, format and subject matter of the topics assessed in the ANZCA Final and Primary examinations.
"What the college was after" / "how candidates scored" educational commentary on what examiners look for in each topic and where candidates typically struggle.
Curated model answers structured into a stem, sub-question breakdown, and references — pitched at the level required to pass an ANZCA viva or SAQ.
Suggested references drawn from PubMed, ANZCA professional documents, ASA / RCoA / AAGBI / OAA guidelines, NICE, the National Audit Projects (NAP4–NAP7), the Difficult Airway Society, ANZAAG, ASRA, ESA, the Cochrane Library, and other peer-reviewed anaesthesia and perioperative medicine sources.
What this pack is not
Not an authoritative reference. Specific drug doses, ventilator parameters, BP / HR / lab targets, and trial conclusions in this pack must be cross-checked against current authoritative sources (current ANZCA professional documents, ASA / RCoA / AAGBI guidelines, manufacturer drug references, your local hospital protocols) before any clinical or examination use.
Not a clinical decision support tool. Do not use this material to make decisions about real patients.
Not endorsed by ANZCA or any of the source organisations cited within it.
Not a substitute for personal study, supervised clinical practice, formal teaching, or examiner-led practice vivas with experienced anaesthetists.
Source acknowledgements
This pack would not exist without the published material of:
Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists (ANZCA) — the practice stems and the "what the college was after" / "how candidates scored" commentary are educational material written to reflect the style, format and subject matter of the topics assessed in the ANZCA Final and Primary examinations. ANZCA publications, professional documents, and the examinations themselves remain the property of ANZCA; this site is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to ANZCA.
MCQ practice bank — the MCQ section’s topic and paper structure is inspired by the community Black Bank tradition of ANZCA exam preparation (anaesthesiamcq.net/BlackBankWiki; original Black Bank by Kerry Brandis, kerrybrandis.com/wiki/mcqwiki). Question stems and answers published on this site are new, original items written and verified for this site.
ANZCA Professional Documents — PS series (PS01 through to current), TE-series, training and assessment documents (anzca.edu.au standards-of-practice).
National Audit Projects (NAP4, NAP5, NAP6, NAP7) — the Royal College of Anaesthetists / AAGBI national audits on airway, accidental awareness, anaphylaxis, and peri-operative cardiac arrest.
Difficult Airway Society (DAS), Obstetric Anaesthetists' Association (OAA), Australian and New Zealand Anaesthetic Allergy Group (ANZAAG), and American Society of Regional Anesthesia (ASRA) — for guidelines referenced in airway, obstetric, anaphylaxis, and regional / neuraxial topics respectively.
Royal College of Anaesthetists (RCoA), Association of Anaesthetists (AAGBI / Anaesthesia), American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA), European Society of Anaesthesiology and Intensive Care (ESAIC), and National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) — for clinical practice guidelines cited throughout.
Faculty of Pain Medicine ANZCA (FPM-ANZCA), Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists Trials Network (ANZCA CTN), Society for Obstetric Anesthesia and Perinatology (SOAP), European Society of Regional Anaesthesia (ESRA), and Society for the Advancement of Patient Blood Management (SABM) — for sub-specialty-specific guidance referenced in pain, obstetric, regional, and transfusion topics.
ANZCA Crisis Management resources — the ANZCA TG (training and education) e-Manual and ANZCA Crisis Manual (Webb / Runciman, et al.) for crisis-resource-management algorithms.
WebAIRS (anztadc.net) — the Australian and New Zealand Tripartite Anaesthesia Data Committee incident-reporting system; cited for incidence data on rare events.
Major anaesthesia journals — British Journal of Anaesthesia (BJA), BJA Education / CEACCP, Anaesthesia, Anaesthesia and Intensive Care, Anesthesiology, Anesthesia & Analgesia, Acta Anaesthesiologica Scandinavica, Regional Anesthesia and Pain Medicine, International Journal of Obstetric Anesthesia, and Pain.
Standard anaesthesia textbooks referenced throughout — Miller's Anesthesia (Gropper et al., 9th ed.), Stoelting's Pharmacology & Physiology in Anesthetic Practice, Morgan & Mikhail's Clinical Anesthesiology, Yao & Artusio's Anesthesiology: Problem-Oriented Patient Management, and Chestnut's Obstetric Anesthesia.
Resuscitation and trauma course curricula — Advanced Life Support (ALS / ANZCOR / ARC), Early Management of Severe Trauma (EMST / ATLS), Effective Management of Anaesthetic Crises (EMAC), and Advanced Paediatric Life Support (APLS).
Life in the Fast Lane (litfl.com), OpenAnesthesia (openanesthesia.org), and AnaesthesiaUK (anaesthesiauk.com) — used as cross-reference benchmarks and frequently cited as additional reading.
Radiopaedia (radiopaedia.org) — for representative imaging used to illustrate radiology-based questions, with per-image attribution.
PubMed / NCBI E-utilities — used to verify trial citations and PMIDs.
The Cochrane Library and the trial groups behind every cited landmark anaesthesia and perioperative medicine study (POISE, POISE-2, POISE-3, RELIEF, ENIGMA, ANZICS-CTG and ANZCA CTN trials, OPTIMISE, REGAIN, MASTER, PADDI, ARISE, the obstetric ROBUST / WOMAN / CRASH-2 trials, and others).
If you are a maintainer of any of these sources and have concerns about how your material is referenced here, contact the maintainer directly to have references removed or revised.
Known limitations
For some older examination sittings, little information exists about how candidates performed; model answers for those topics are synthesised against standard ANZCA-level practice without candidate-performance data to anchor them.
Trial details may have been mis-summarised. Where such errors were detected they have been corrected, but only a subset of trial citations were exhaustively verified against the original abstract.
Drug doses and lab thresholds may differ from current local protocols. Always cross-check against your hospital formulary and local guidelines.
Spelling is Australian / British (anaesthesia, oedema, etc.). Some US-style phrasing may have leaked through.
A small number of (sitting, viva-number) and (sitting, paper, SAQ-number) combinations are not covered.
Coverage is not exhaustive: this pack addresses a curated subset of the topics assessed in recent ANZCA Final and Primary examinations, not every topic ever examined.
Privacy & data
No real patient data is contained in this pack.
The site stores only your email address and an authentication session for sign-in; no clinical or identifying information beyond that is collected.
Recommended use
Read this disclaimer before using anything else in the pack.
Use the pack as a study scaffold, not as a primary clinical reference.
Cross-check any specific number (drug dose, BP / HR / lab target, ventilator parameter, neuraxial-anticoagulation interval) against current ANZCA professional documents, ASRA / DAS / OAA / ANZAAG guidelines, manufacturer references, and your local hospital protocols.
Practise with a colleague or supervising consultant rather than relying solely on the model answers.
Defer to current College guidance on examination conduct, format, and content.
Liability
This material is provided "as is" with no warranty of any kind, express or implied, including but not limited to merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and non-infringement. The maintainers accept no liability for any error, omission, or consequence arising from use of this material.
Contact
For corrections, takedown requests, or questions about provenance, contact the maintainer at support@anaesthesia-viva.com.