This plan is designed for clinicians — often GPs, GP trainees and others delivering sexual and reproductive healthcare — preparing for the Diploma of the Faculty of Sexual and Reproductive Healthcare. The knowledge component is an online theory assessment of single-best-answer questions, sat alongside the Course of 5 and a clinical assessment. The recurring risk is guideline drift, because contraceptive eligibility and management move, so the central principle is building current knowledge and reasoning from the underlying frameworks rather than memorising rules that may have changed.
The reality you're working with
You are likely working a clinical role, so study time is limited and fragmented. Some content overlaps with your practice if you already provide contraception, but other areas will be less familiar, and the knowledge assessment expects current, UK-specific guidance. The DFSRH has separate components — the theory assessment, the Course of 5 and clinical assessment — that need distinct attention, and the knowledge side in particular punishes out-of-date answers. The plan has to fit short sessions, prioritise currency, and build framework-based reasoning.
The tools worth your time
Use the Faculty's own resources as your backbone — the clinical guidance and the UK Medical Eligibility Criteria are the authoritative sources — and the optional e-SRH e-learning is a structured route into the theory. Use a question resource for exam-style practice in contraception and women's health. Use iatroX as the adaptive, decision-focused layer alongside these: its engine sequences practice around your weak areas with spaced repetition, its Socratic Tutor works back through the reasoning behind a contraceptive decision rather than handing over a memorised answer, and Ask iatroX retrieves current FSRH, RCOG and NICE positions from a sourced corpus when a rule may have moved.
The shape of the plan
Plan across the weeks before your assessment, treating high-change content differently from stable content. For the volatile areas — contraceptive eligibility, emergency contraception, the management of method-specific problems — learn the reasoning from the eligibility framework rather than fixed answers, and confirm current positions directly against the Faculty's guidance. Work adaptive blocks concentrated on your weak areas, debriefing misses into rebuilt reasoning and checking currency on management items. The Course of 5 and clinical assessment proceed as their own components on the Faculty's requirements. As the theory assessment nears, add timed practice matched to its single-best-answer format. The weekly minimum is a daily focused block plus regular currency checks on the high-change areas, with timed sets close to the assessment.
Inside a typical week
To see how this plays out, picture a clinical week. On most evenings you do a thirty-to-forty-minute adaptive block on a weak contraception or women's health area, reviewing each miss against current Faculty guidance rather than racing through volume, while the system keeps earlier topics warm. When a management answer turns on an eligibility rule — whether a method is safe for a given condition, the timing of emergency contraception — you reason from the framework and confirm the current position rather than relying on memory. You hold a single area across several days so it consolidates. You fit the e-SRH e-learning and Course of 5 work into the schedule as their own strands. On heavy clinical stretches you dial down the load and reload on rest days. Near the assessment, you sit a timed set and re-check the volatile areas, because a guideline that changed after your main revision is a classic trap. On balance, the week's emphasis is currency and framework-based reasoning.
Reasoning from eligibility rather than memory
The single most useful habit for the DFSRH knowledge assessment is to reason from the UK Medical Eligibility Criteria rather than memorising condition-to-method pairs, because that is both how the guidance is structured and what protects you when a specific rule is updated. A candidate who memorises that a particular method suits a particular condition is vulnerable the moment the criteria change; a candidate who understands the framework — the categories, the principles behind them, how a new diagnosis or risk factor shifts a recommendation — can apply it to an unfamiliar combination and to a revised guideline alike. Emergency contraception works the same way: understanding the basis for the method choices and timing windows is more durable than memorising them. Build the eligibility framework as reasoning, confirm the current detail directly against the Faculty's guidance, and the volatile content stops being a liability.
What iatroX brings to this
Think of iatroX as the adaptive, decision-focused layer beside the Faculty's resources, not a replacement. Its engine sequences practice around your weak areas with spaced repetition, and its Socratic Tutor is built for the central question — what changes the contraceptive choice or the management — which builds transferable reasoning rather than recognition. Ask iatroX settles current FSRH, RCOG and NICE positions from a sourced corpus, directly countering the guideline-drift problem. It supports the knowledge assessment and does not replace the Course of 5 or the clinical assessment, which have their own requirements.
When the plan needs changing
Give the high-change areas more attention than their share of the syllabus suggests. If your diagnostic flags a weak area, concentrate there. If time is short, prioritise currency on the volatile content and framework-based reasoning over exhaustive reading. The danger sign is memorising fixed eligibility rules; reason from the framework instead, so you can apply it even when a specific rule has been updated.
Quick answers
What is the knowledge component? An online theory assessment of single-best-answer questions, sat alongside the Course of 5 and a clinical assessment.
What is the main risk? Guideline drift — applying an out-of-date eligibility or management rule.
How should I approach eligibility? As reasoning from the UK Medical Eligibility Criteria framework, confirming current detail directly rather than memorising rules.
Does this cover the Course of 5 and clinical assessment? No — those are separate components with their own requirements.