Another week another course finished. This time it was M101, "health effects of hazardous substances".

As usual, the exam was disappointing, in that the questions were not all of a high standard. One of the part B questions in particular, was of concern. Although the overall question was OK - it asked about the hazardous effects of four relatively important substances, it also asked about how the substances could be "detected" required the candidates to list the relevant occupational exposure limits.

First of all what was meant by "detected"? Do they mean how do the senses detect the substances, how they can be detected by biological monitoring or how they can be detected by air sampling? It is not clear at all. And if they mean any of these aspects, they are outside the scope of the syllabus. An example of poor question writing.

I also think that expecting candidates to list exposure limits is unreasonable. For a start, there is nothing in the syllabus that requires it (limits aren't even mentioned). If the examiners do think it is fair (I assume they do given that they set the question), then it would imply that the candidates must know all the limits in EH40 as there is nothing to indicate that only a small selection need to be memorised. This is not just unreasonable but I would contend that it is bad practice to attempt to remember the contents of EH40. First of all there are more important things that need to be held inside our limited memory banks. Secondly limits change and I think that it is much better to encourage hygienists to look them up and ensure that the most current one is applied. Its easy enough to do this - especially as the main reference source is the pdf file posted on the HSE website (now that they don't publish a hard copy every year).

We should be training candidates about what limits are, where to find them and how to locate them - but not expecting them to memorise them.