How to revise for the DFPH

Before you open a single book, make sure you understand what the exam is asking of you. The Diplomate Examination has two written papers, each in two parts: Paper I (IA and IB) tests knowledge across the syllabus, and Paper II tests skills, with IIA built around a published research paper and IIB built around data. Each part rewards a different kind of preparation, and a plan that treats them all the same tends to over-prepare for knowledge and under-prepare for skills.

Read the official syllabus and the current regulations on the Faculty of Public Health website, and read them again a few weeks later: the syllabus tells you what can be asked, and the regulations tell you how the papers are run, timed and passed. Then read our guides to each paper so that the format, command words and marking expectations are familiar before you start revising content.

Work out how many weeks you realistically have, allowing for work, leave and life, then divide the syllabus across them. Resist the urge to allocate time by how interesting a topic is. Allocate it by how much of the syllabus it represents and how weak you currently are in it.

Build the plan around three threads that run in parallel rather than in sequence: knowledge revision for Paper I, critical appraisal practice for Paper IIA and data practice for Paper IIB. A week that only covers knowledge leaves the skills papers to decay. Protect a fixed slot every week for timed written practice, because that is the single activity most closely linked to how marks are actually awarded.

• Map every syllabus heading to a week, and note where you will find your material for each one
• Schedule a timed practice session every week from the start, not just at the end
• Keep the final two or three weeks free of new material so they can be used for consolidation and full-paper rehearsals
• Review the plan monthly and move time towards whatever your practice reveals as weak

Reading notes and highlighting feel productive but mostly build recognition: the comfortable sense that you have seen something before. The exam requires recall: producing a definition, a list of criteria or a framework from memory, under time pressure, in your own words.

Favour techniques that force retrieval. Close the book and write the definition. Reproduce the Wilson and Jungner criteria, or the UK National Screening Committee criteria, on a blank page. Explain a concept out loud as if to a colleague who missed the lecture. Space these attempts out over days and weeks so that each recall has to work a little harder than the last.

• Turn each syllabus heading into a set of questions, then answer them from memory before checking
• Keep a running list of frameworks and definitions you can reproduce without notes
• Revisit topics after a gap rather than in one long block; the forgetting is part of the learning

Paper I consists of compulsory short-answer questions, so time management across the whole paper matters as much as knowing the material. Practise with a clock running and learn how many distinct points you can make per mark in the time available. Most candidates discover they write too much for small-mark questions and too little for large ones.

Structure answers so they are easy to mark: a brief framing sentence, then clearly separated points, each with a reason or an example. Structured notes and bullet points are usually clearer than prose. When you review against model answer points, be honest about what you actually wrote, not what you meant.

Paper IIA cannot be crammed. The ability to read a paper quickly, judge its design against its question, spot the biases that genuinely matter and interpret its results in words is built through repetition. Appraise a published paper each week, using a checklist such as the CASP tools as scaffolding but always anchoring each point in what the authors actually did.

Practise the communication element too. Write a short, plain-English summary of a paper for a non-specialist audience and ask someone outside your field whether it makes sense. Marks reward clear interpretation of the numbers, not a recitation of the abstract.

Paper IIB tests whether you can manipulate and interpret public health data. Calculators and software are not the skill; the skill is knowing which calculation answers the question, carrying it out accurately with the right denominator and units, and then saying what the result means and what else could explain it.

Rehearse the standard calculations until they are automatic: rates and ratios, direct and indirect standardisation, the screening two-by-two table, absolute and relative risk, numbers needed to treat and the interpretation of confidence intervals. Always write the formula, substitute the numbers and state the units, so that method marks are available even if a slip occurs.

Revision is more effective and less lonely with a small group. Mark each other’s written answers against model points, challenge vague statements and share the frameworks that work. Your training programme, educational supervisor and colleagues who have recently sat the exam are all legitimate sources of practical advice. Check anything that sounds like a rule against the official regulations.

Use the last weeks for full-paper rehearsals under realistic conditions, light review of your frameworks and definitions, and rest. New material learned in the final days is rarely retrievable under pressure and tends to displace what you already knew.

Confirm the logistics well in advance: the format of delivery, what you are permitted to use, the start times and the gap between Paper I and Paper II. All of this is set by the Faculty of Public Health and can change, so take it from the official source rather than from memory or from forums. On the day, read every question twice, allocate time by marks before you start writing, and never leave a question blank: structured reasoning from first principles can still earn credit.