RACP Divisional Written Exam · FRACP

Infectious Diseases for the written exam

Everything Physify has for Infectious Diseases: short lessons written to Australian guidance, exam-style questions with a worked explanation for each, and Bedside, our AI tutor, under every one. Try a question below, no sign-up.

courses: 26courses
lessons: 149lessons
exam-style questions: 659exam-style questions
figures in the lessons: 18figures in the lessons

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Infectious Diseases

A 45 year old woman with rifampicin-susceptible pulmonary tuberculosis has read that a trial cured tuberculosis in 8 weeks. She is tolerating standard treatment, and her 2-month sputum culture is negative. She asks whether she can stop at 2 months. What is the most appropriate advice?

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What's covered

26 courses, each a set of lessons with a quiz after them. The bar shows how many questions each has. Open a course to see its lesson outline.

From the lessons

18 figures sit in the Infectious Diseases lessons: ECGs, diagrams, films and clinical images, each with what to look for. Here are 4. Tap one to enlarge it.

Schematic of the natural history of HIV infection on a broken time axis, weeks then years, in two panels. Top, CD4 count: a transient fall during acute infection, a partial recovery, then a slow decline over years of clinical latency until it crosses 200 cells per microlitre, where AIDS begins. Bottom, viral load on a log scale: a very high peak during acute infection, when the person is most infectious, falling to a set point that predicts the pace of progression, then rising again as AIDS develops. A bracket marks the seroconversion illness 2 to 4 weeks after exposure, with fever, sore throat, rash and lymphadenopathy. A green line marks diagnosis and the start of antiretroviral therapy, at any CD4 count; with treatment the viral load falls below the limit of detection, and undetectable means untransmittable, while the CD4 count recovers. AIDS is a CD4 count under 200 or an AIDS-defining illness at any count. — Physify teaching diagram (schematic). Tap the image to zoom.

From the lesson “Testing, Staging & Antiretroviral Therapy” in Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) & AIDS

A schematic rod-shaped bacterium with a peptidoglycan cell wall and a cytoplasmic membrane, the chromosome, RNA polymerase making mRNA, a ribosome with its 50S and 30S subunits, and the folate pathway from PABA to DHF to THF, with seven numbered targets. 1, cell wall: beta-lactams (penicillins, cephalosporins, carbapenems, aztreonam) bind penicillin-binding proteins and block cross-linking; glycopeptides (vancomycin, teicoplanin) bind the D-Ala-D-Ala end of wall precursors and are too large to cross the Gram-negative outer membrane. 2, membrane: daptomycin inserts into the Gram-positive membrane and depolarises it, and is inactivated by lung surfactant; polymyxins (colistin, polymyxin B) bind lipid A of Gram-negative lipopolysaccharide and disrupt the membranes. 3, 30S subunit: aminoglycosides cause misreading and kill, but their uptake needs oxygen, so they fail in anaerobes and abscesses; tetracyclines (doxycycline, minocycline, tigecycline) block aminoacyl-tRNA binding. 4, 50S subunit: macrolides, clindamycin, linezolid and chloramphenicol; clindamycin and linezolid also switch off toxin production. 5, DNA gyrase and topoisomerase IV: fluoroquinolones (ciprofloxacin, moxifloxacin) trap the enzymes on DNA, causing breaks. 6, folate pathway: sulfamethoxazole blocks dihydropteroate synthase and trimethoprim blocks dihydrofolate reductase, a sequential blockade. 7, RNA polymerase: rifampicin, to which one rpoB mutation gives resistance, so it is never used alone. — Physify teaching diagram (schematic). Tap the image to zoom.

From the lesson “Principles of Antimicrobial Choice, Pharmacokinetics and Dosing” in Antimicrobial Therapy and Stewardship

Cut lung specimen: a round, brown, crumbly mass inside a cavity near the top of the lung, partly pulled away from the cavity wall. — Gross specimen: an aspergilloma in an old tuberculous cavity. Where the fungus ball has retracted from the cavity wall, air lies between them: the basis of the air crescent (Monod) sign on imaging. Image: Yale Rosen, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons; resized. Original. Tap the image to zoom.

From the lesson “Aspergillus spp.” in Fungi

Gram stain: a single pus cell whose cytoplasm is filled with many small pink paired cocci, beside other pink-staining cells. — Gram stain of urethral pus: a neutrophil packed with Gram-negative diplococci. In a man with urethral discharge this is enough to treat as gonorrhoea, but take a culture before the first dose so susceptibility can be tested. Image: Graham Beards, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons; cropped and resized. Original. Tap the image to zoom.

From the lesson “Neisseria meningitidis / Haemophilus influenzae / Neisseria gonorrhoeae” in Gram-negative bacteria

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10 free Infectious Diseases questions

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Infectious Diseases high-yield summary

The associations and Australia-only points on one page.

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Infectious Diseases in the clinical exam

1 long case for the RACP Divisional Clinical Exam: you examine, present and are marked on the five RACP domains.

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