MAFP/icFRACGP Part 1 study plan

MAFP/icFRACGP Part 1 · Give each week a clear focus.

8 weeks · About 7 hours per week

Week 1

Applied professional knowledge and skills & Communication and the patient-doctor relationship

Map the Domain 2 syllabus against your own clinical experience and list the five areas where your knowledge is weakest.
Build a one-page framework for structured history-taking that integrates biomedical, psychological and social threads, and rehearse it aloud on three volunteer colleagues.
Practise 20 focused clinical reasoning vignettes (common presentations: chest pain, dyspnoea, abdominal pain, fatigue) and write the discriminating features you used for each.
Draft a personal glossary of red-flag symptoms across five systems and test yourself on it at the end of the week.

A written weak-area list plus a completed 20-vignette reasoning log with discriminating features annotated.

Week 2

Work through 40 mixed applied-knowledge questions under timed conditions and categorise every error as knowledge gap, misread stem, or reasoning error.
Summarise the screening and immunisation schedule relevant to general practice into a single reference sheet you can self-quiz from.
Explain the difference between absolute and relative risk reduction using two worked examples, and apply it to a shared decision-making script.
Identify three population-level determinants of health in your local community and describe how each would change your consulting approach.

An error-analysis table for 40 questions with a corrective action recorded against each error type.

Week 3

Consolidate the top 10 presentations by prevalence in general practice and write a management algorithm for each from first contact to safety-netting.
Rehearse three ethically challenging scenarios (impaired colleague, patient request for non-beneficial treatment, confidentiality in a family consultation) and articulate your reasoning aloud.
Draft a personal framework for professional boundaries, including social media and gifts, and stress-test it against two difficult cases.
Complete 30 timed questions weighted to Domain 2 and review every explanation, not just the incorrect items.

Ten one-page management algorithms plus a written professional-boundaries framework.

Week 4

Summarise the legal framework for consent, capacity and mandatory reporting in your jurisdiction into a decision tree.
Work through five documentation and certification scenarios (death certificate, fitness-to-work, notifiable disease) and draft the correct paperwork for each.
Analyse how practice organisation, funding and access influence population health outcomes, using one real practice as a case study.
Complete a 50-question timed mixed paper spanning Domains 2, 3, 4 and 5 and record your percentage and error pattern.

A consent and capacity decision tree plus a completed 50-question mock with scored error breakdown.

Week 5

Build a one-page antenatal and postnatal care pathway covering screening, risk stratification and referral triggers.
Practise six paediatric consultation scenarios that require adapting communication to the child's developmental stage and the accompanying parent.
Summarise the assessment and initial management of three common paediatric presentations (fever without focus, wheeze, faltering growth) into checklists.
Rehearse three sensitive women's health consultations (contraception counselling, abnormal bleeding, menopause) aloud with a peer and note feedback.

An antenatal/postnatal pathway page plus three paediatric management checklists.

Week 6

Practise 15 mental health consultations using a structured assessment that covers risk, substance use, social context and protective factors.
Draft and rehearse a suicide-risk assessment and safety-planning script, then test it against two escalating vignettes.
Demonstrate motivational interviewing techniques in three recorded role-plays and self-rate against a fidelity checklist.
Map the local mental health referral pathway, including waiting times and crisis options, into a single reference sheet.

A suicide-risk assessment and safety-planning script plus a referral pathway reference sheet.

Week 7

Construct a comprehensive geriatric assessment checklist covering function, cognition, falls, polypharmacy and advance care planning.
Rehearse three goals-of-care and palliative conversations with a peer, focusing on prognosis disclosure and eliciting patient priorities.
Review deprescribing principles and apply them to five realistic polypharmacy cases, documenting your reasoning.
Revisit your Domain 4 framework and update it with insights from the palliative and older-person scenarios.

A completed comprehensive geriatric assessment checklist plus five written deprescribing case analyses.

Week 8

Sit two full-length timed mock examinations under exam conditions and record scores by domain.
Re-teach your three weakest domains aloud from memory, then verify against your notes and correct any errors.
Revisit every item from your error log across the eight weeks and confirm each corrective action was completed.
Rehearse ten rapid-fire communication scenarios to rebuild fluency under time pressure.

Two scored mock examinations with a domain-by-domain comparison table and a final 48-hour revision list.

Week 2: You can name your three weakest Domain 2 sub-areas and have a written corrective action for each.

Week 4: You score at least 60% on the 50-question mixed paper and your error log shows fewer reasoning errors than in week 2.

Week 6: You can deliver a suicide-risk assessment aloud without notes and have completed all 15 mental health practice consultations.

Week 8: You score at least 70% on both full-length mocks, with no single domain below 55%.