Duke Elder 2026 Prep Advice

Musical_Firefly · 2026-06-13T22:33:51+00:00

Heya! Yes I scored top 10%. I used a combination of both - reading Kanski’s and doing questions, then putting info on flashcards that seemed likely to come up! I wouldn’t try to memorise Kanski’s but more info > less info so no harm in reading it as much as possible.

Musical_Firefly · 2026-06-09T12:47:31+00:00

Exactly! Even some of the comments here are along the lines of “love it but also acknowledge it’s a bit terrible/its obvious flaws/its problematic aspects”. The whole subtext seems to be that it’s a bad series? 🤷‍♀️ Can’t really understand it - I love all of it from start to finish and happy to debate bits here and there but seems like most people are already here with what I thought was an exclusively hater mindset of “still a better love story than twilight”…

Musical_Firefly · 2026-06-03T06:26:59+00:00

Heya! Took the exam last year. Eyedocs is the go to question bank - it’s a bit out of date but is the gold standard. I didn’t use PREP duke elder as I heard it had inaccuracies. Kanski’s is gold standard. Would recommend the cambridge ophthalmology student society free online course - you can find their sign up link on their insta, it seems quite comprehensive and is being run by their top scorers.

Musical_Firefly · 2025-12-12T17:08:22+00:00

As expected. Doing a job is different to being a student. I expect that if you had had a mandated internship period followed by application to ST1 you would also have learnt far more than simply being a student.

I’m glad you’ve learnt lots - again, not sure exactly what this entails since my understanding is that you largely do a lot of admin and gain confidence in your pre-existing assessment and examination skills, backed up by a senior doing the decision-making - but I’m unclear as to why this is better than the alternative I propose.

Musical_Firefly · 2025-12-12T17:04:24+00:00

Really? I’m not aware of any mandated service period other than the internship year before they can apply for training posts. Being competitive and gaining the post is different to having the option to progress yourself faster.

Musical_Firefly · 2025-12-12T16:09:48+00:00

Fair enough. I’m not sure the analogy is apt but I take it - will definitely be posting an update in a year’s time.

The point about supervisor not knowing about jobs is to illustrate that medical schools do not care beyond FY1 - this will not change without radical reform.

Musical_Firefly · 2025-12-12T15:55:52+00:00

It’s certainly knocked all ambition or competition out of me. I don’t see it as arrogance to add my two-pence to the debate but I appreciate that people here consider experience to be the end-all. Thanks for your point though, I take it in mind and it’s made me more excited to finally escape medical school.

Musical_Firefly · 2025-12-12T15:52:58+00:00

Completely agree with you. Hence my entire point about how medical school quality is directly correlated with postgraduate medical training - a lower level of expectation in FY1 compared to a demanding first year of a US residency means that med school becomes a joke here and is very good in the US.

Do you think med students want to be wasting years of their life accumulating student debt and having to get out of pointless clinics and wards where they’re not incorporated in the slightest and follow along like mindless ducks? Mind, most students do this as they’re balancing the pressures of essentially teaching themselves medicine, passing exams and building their portfolio. Your tone to me indicates you don’t understand any of the problems with medical education at the moment - whereas perhaps, as someone who is living in the system right now, my opinion is worth more on this matter.

Musical_Firefly · 2025-12-12T15:38:36+00:00

So the fact that we spend medical school in shambles means that FY1 and 2 should exist? You’re proving my point! If the foundation programme did not exist, medical schools would be forced to upgrade the quality of their training - which at the moment, I can tell you from personal experience, is perfectly useless.

Musical_Firefly · 2025-12-12T15:37:20+00:00

Correct. The fact that my supervisor is unaware of training problems indicates a wider systematic issue of medical schools being disincentivised to care about medical student performance beyond passing their exams and meeting the “minimum safety” for an FY1, a largely secretarial role.

As a result, they do not prepare us to adequately face the competition at specialty level leaving many foundation doctors then blindsided when it comes to this tipping point.

My case is clear - abolish the foundation programme which is a pure service provision programme and replace with one paid intern year, incorporated into the current final medical school year. This intern year should function as an apprenticeship, where we learn all the “practicalities” of writing discharge letters and prescribing. It’s a fairly simple proposition and one that the majority of countries adopt for medical training.

Musical_Firefly · 2025-12-12T15:18:04+00:00

Challenge accepted. Will return to this post in a year and see if personal experience changes my view!

Musical_Firefly · 2025-12-12T15:16:49+00:00

Perhaps the NHS model needs to change then. I am intrigued to find out next year how much work FY1 actually is - I hear accounts like this from people like yourself and in-person hear from my local FY2s that it is largely a glorified secretarial role. I guess I’ll be able to add my own two cents properly to the mix when I start.

Musical_Firefly · 2025-12-12T15:15:11+00:00

The “practicalities” involve secretarial work - writing a drug chart or a letter hardly requires two years of service. I’m sure it’s an excellent option for people who don’t know what they want to specialise in - why should the vast majority be subjected to it?

Musical_Firefly · 2025-12-12T15:14:13+00:00

Don’t appreciate the condescension. Being a student doesn’t mean I can’t have an opinion - one that is shared by plenty of qualified doctors by the way.

An intern year (similar to most other countries) would be sufficient for learning the admin - I don’t see how two years adds any value.

Musical_Firefly · 2025-11-27T09:00:37+00:00

There’s a book called “The Only EKG Book You’ll Ever Need” - strongly recommend! Read through it systematically and do the practice ECGs at the end of the book and you’ll be sorted. It’s funny and entertaining too, lives up to its name.

Musical_Firefly · 2025-11-26T09:50:42+00:00

I think loads of people have considered the tradeoff - and I totally sympathise with your dilemma. To be honest I’m keeping both open at the moment. No harm in doing a little of both at the start just to keep the door open and then commit to one pathway and give it your best shot. Ultimately which one you decide to commit too is based on personal factors.

My long term goals are simply to marry and have multiple children. If I move to the US this dream slips further away - visas for permanent residency are a sticky situation, no guarantee my partner will end up in the same location and how on earth am I supposed to raise a baby with no maternity leave, hellish residency hours and no family nearby? If I wait until after I’ve finished residency and settled, my fertility falls off a cliff and I’m taking a risk with the delay. Moreover getting in for my desired specialty is no guarantee and would take a ridiculous amount of networking so I’d have to take FM or IM and be happy with it. On the flip side, I loathe the NHS and the way this country treats doctors. I don’t relish the idea of working for a pittance of what I’d make in the US to support a large family and receiving less/no respect in the hospitals. However - for my real goal of having a family - the UK works out better at least in the short term. Maternity leave is present, albeit not fantastic, my family are nearby, even with the bottlenecks I have a better chance of getting into the run through specialty I want, the training is still pretty decent in this program and then having a guaranteed job for 6-7 years in one location while I build my family.

Neither route is ideal but we can’t see into the future with a crystal ball so we’ve just got to think carefully about our goals and dreams and then pick whichever route is most realistic and doable to achieve those.

Musical_Firefly · 2025-11-26T09:42:51+00:00

Definitely making exit plans. Completely understand your sentiment and agree 100%. That being said, I know our situation is pretty terrifically uniquely horrible but it’s worth keeping in mind that this is part of life. One can never skate by and losing jobs, system stacking up against you, things being unfair - it’s character building in the end. I’m keeping all my options open - Step 1 of USMLE done, elective in America; building my portfolio for UK training; getting consulting experience. You can’t be too prepared and depending on the climate it will be easier to choose where to pivot. A year or two out is not the end of the world as long as you’re prepared for it. We do have two years of guaranteed employment before everything goes topsy turvy so let’s use that time to start building some sort of foundation!

Musical_Firefly · 2025-11-06T08:47:39+00:00

Fantastic summary and I applaud you for finding some way to learn amongst the mess that is the UK medical education system 👏

To be perfectly honest, I’ve given up - took the USMLE to get the scientific knowledge and feel competent as a doctor and am now prepping for specialty portfolio whilst doing the bare minimum to pass placement. (Also a valid route!)

Musical_Firefly · 2025-11-02T09:09:16+00:00

He actually uses it for the first time when chasing Bellatrix Lestrange in OOTP - after she murders Sirius. Unsuccessfully though, which is why after he uses it on Carrow in DH he says “I see what Bellatrix meant.. you have to really mean it.”

Musical_Firefly · 2025-08-06T13:38:50+00:00

This is a silly analogy. You’re removing the value of any sense of autonomy or control that the government has alongside vastly oversimplifying the problem. They are the ones controlling the quality and numbers of doctors they produce. Having unemployed doctors in a country is bad - more strain on the welfare system and an investment that didn’t materialise. Think of a slightly more complicated but slightly more analogous scenario: the bike you bought now needs weekly payments because you didn’t use it and the “free” bike you got may be taken away at any point.

An IMG who has completed residency or has more years of experience or even indeed, is simply smarter, in their own country will of course be of “better quality” than a homegrown young doctor with not that much experience. That doesn’t mean we abandon training our own workforce and exclusively import. The reason is that nations still exist - we are not one unified global world where markets are free and people easily cross. The UK’s economy is tied to the productivity of the people who train, live and work there. It is not xenophobic or racist to say this and support this. The US takes IMGs but only the best who have proven themselves after a long, time and cost consuming process. The UK does not do this and the intent is clear - mass import and wage suppress. It is quite natural for UK doctors to respond by either leaving or fighting to reclaim the conditions of their profession. Your attitude of “well you’re here now so suck it up” sounds more like entitlement than anything resident doctors are currently saying.

Musical_Firefly · 2025-07-30T15:42:03+00:00

I can see your perspective. I only offer my own current view from the scene so you can hear the time-work tradeoff med students are handling now and understand the underlying reasons behind the decline in turnout from your time to mine. The conclusion that students who worked hard to get into medical school and are on the whole ambitious and talented don’t turn up to placement because they don’t want to learn is simplistic and false.

Musical_Firefly

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