MFDS Part 1 Study Plan: Four Months While Working Full Time
My MFDS Part 1 study plan started with four months, a full-time job and a suspicious amount of confidence. Four months sounded reasonable. Plenty of time, I thought. This was before I remembered that I would also need to work, eat, sleep and occasionally stare at a wall after a long day.
Welcome to Episode 2 of MFDS Diaries. If Episode 1 was “why am I doing this to myself?”, this is the part where I opened the book and started asking follow-up questions.
Making a Study Plan I Could Actually Follow
So I made a study plan. A proper one, with subjects and dates. Very organised. Very ambitious. A lovely piece of fiction in certain weeks, haha.
But I really did need one. Without a plan, I would have spent every evening deciding what to study, then rewarded myself with a break for making such a difficult decision.
Did I follow it every day? No. Some days I came home and managed a decent study session. Other days, I read the same paragraph five times and still couldn’t tell you who was involved or what had happened.
So I built some leeway into the timetable. I knew there would be tired days, and I didn’t want one missed evening to turn into “well, this week is ruined, let’s try again on Monday.”
Starting My MFDS Part 1 Revision
I started with the Oxford book. It’s available as an ebook or a physical book, depending on how you prefer to study. Both work. Neither works through being placed beside your pillow, unfortunately.
Oral medicine and oral pathology were my first stop. I expected plenty of questions from these areas, so I wanted more time to go through them. I ended up spending almost a month on OPOM alone. By that point, I was ready to list it as my current address.
After that, I moved on to paediatric dentistry, which took me around two weeks. It felt good to move on to another subject. Briefly. Then I remembered how many were still waiting.
Subjects in My MFDS Part 1 Study Plan
These were the main subjects on my must-cover list:
- Oral Medicine
- Oral Pathology
- Paediatric Dentistry
- Oral Radiology
- Restorative Dentistry
- Endodontics
- Orthodontics
- Anatomy
- Prosthodontics
- Dental Materials
- Oral Surgery
- Preventive Dentistry
- Medical Emergencies
For me, everything on this list needed to be covered—no exceptions. I couldn’t leave a subject out just because we weren’t getting along. Hoping it wouldn’t appear in the exam wasn’t a revision method I wanted to depend on.
Fitting Revision Around a Full-Time Job
I didn’t spend the same amount of time on every subject. Some needed longer, while others involved focusing on the major topics. The timetable needed adjusting along the way, especially when my evening study session turned into me waking up with the book still open.
Studying for MFDS Part 1 while working full time meant working with the energy I actually had. The version of me who made the timetable apparently believed I would arrive home refreshed and excited to revise. I would have liked to meet her.
In reality, those four months involved work, study, getting tired, adjusting the plan and trying again. Some days were productive. Some days I deserved a small award for opening the book at all.
Still, having a plan helped. After a missed session, I could see where to pick things up again. I kept going, even when I was behind the dates I had so confidently written down.
Next Episode: Subject Breakdown and Study Notes
In the next episode of MFDS Diaries, I’ll go into more detail about each subject and the notes I used during my MFDS Part 1 preparation. This episode was just the introduction to the suffering, haha.
If you’d like the study materials, leave a comment requesting them along with your email address so I can send them over. At least my notes can continue working now that I’m done with them.
