ANZCA Final viva practice
The Final tests clinical judgement across subspecialty anaesthesia, perioperative medicine and crisis management. The viva rewards a safe, structured plan defended out loud, not a recited list. Below is every area you can drill on Viva Station, grouped the way the syllabus is. Each links to a page on how that topic tends to be examined — then you can sit a timed spoken station on it.
First, how the ANZCA Final viva works.
Practise this out loud with an AI examiner. Your first 2 stations are free.
Subspecialty anaesthesia
Airway management
Central to the Final. Examiners want a structured, safe plan — assessment, a first approach, and clear fallbacks — that you can defend out loud. Stating a plan and the points that would make you change it comes across as safe.
Cardiac anaesthesia
High-stakes physiology under anaesthesia. The examiner is usually checking whether your plan is safe and reasoned for this patient and this operation, not whether you can list everything.
Thoracic anaesthesia
One-lung ventilation, lung isolation and oxygenation come up. Working through the plan and its complications in order keeps a technically dense topic under control.
Vascular surgery and interventional radiology
Perioperative risk, haemodynamic targets, and the challenges of a shared airway or a remote site. Tie the plan to the specific physiological threat.
ENT and maxillofacial surgery
In a ent and maxillofacial surgery viva, examiners want an ordered answer built out loud under time — a framework you can defend under prompting beats breadth recited flat.
Neurosurgical anaesthesia
Controlling cerebral physiology under anaesthesia. Reasoning from the governing principles — perfusion, pressure, what each intervention does — keeps the answer disciplined.
Obstetric anaesthesia
Time-critical decisions and the physiology of two patients. Examiners want a safe, decisive plan; stating your priorities early helps when the pressure is on.
Paediatric anaesthesia
Reasoning adjusted for age and weight, not adult practice scaled down. Examiners want a plan that shows you know what actually changes.
Ophthalmic anaesthesia
A compact topic — the specific risks, block versus general, the shared quiet field. Weighing the options is better than stating a preference flat.
Orthopaedic surgery
Regional technique, positioning and the specific perioperative risks. Tie the plan to the particular operation and patient.
Plastics, reconstructive and burns
Long cases, fluid and temperature management, and the physiology of the burns patient. Examiners want an ordered plan for a complex, changing situation.
General surgery
Everyday cases used to check the fundamentals are safe and well reasoned. Examiners often probe the complication you left out, so structure protects you.
Urology
Positioning, the specific syndromes, and the older patient with other problems. Link the plan to the particular hazards of the operation.
Gynaecology
Reasoning about the specific operation, positioning and patient. Examiners want a plan fitted to the case, not a generic anaesthetic.
Practice & principles
General anaesthesia and sedation
The fundamentals defended for a specific patient. The examiner wants to see your standard plan flex safely to the case in front of you.
Regional anaesthesia and ultrasound
Indications, technique, and managing complications. Weighing regional against the alternative for this patient is what marks you as a clinician rather than a technician.
Perioperative medicine
Risk assessment, optimisation, and shared decisions across the whole journey. A structured approach to the patient with other conditions beats a memorised checklist.
Pain medicine
Acute and chronic strategies and what underpins them. Reasoning from mechanism to a safe, multimodal plan keeps a broad topic organised.
Critical care & emergencies
Intensive care
Organ support and the sickest patients. Examiners want ordered, safe reasoning under pressure — a system-by-system approach usually holds up.
Resuscitation
Time-critical and protocol-anchored, but examined on the reasoning around the protocol. Knowing why, not just what, is what's being tested.
Trauma and crisis management
Prioritising under pressure. Examiners want a safe, ordered response you can communicate — the crisis-resource skills the real event needs.
Applied science & evidence
Equipment and monitoring
How a device or monitor works, its limits, and how it fails, applied to the decision it informs. Reasoning about the limitation is where the marks are.
Landmark studies and evidence-based practice
Knowing the evidence and being able to say how it should — and shouldn't — change practice. Weighing a study rather than just citing it is what's wanted.
General medicine
The medical conditions that shape an anaesthetic. Examiners want to see you carry the medicine into a safe perioperative plan.
Sit a ANZCA Final station.
Your first 2 stations are free. Email sign-in, no password, no card — just you and the examiner.
Start practising