Before you plan around the Society of Occupational Medicine (SOM) for the Diploma in Occupational Medicine (DOccMed), one honest point has to lead: the SOM is a membership society, not the examining body, and it is not a question bank. Its DOccMed material is orientation, portfolio guidance and reading direction — genuinely useful, but it contains no MCQs to calibrate on. This workflow is for candidates who want to use SOM's resources for what they actually are, and get their MCQ calibration and volume from the FOM's official examples, third-party banks and iatroX. The principal limitation: there is nothing here to "sit", so the calibration must come from elsewhere.
What the Society of Occupational Medicine actually provides right now
The SOM sits alongside the FOM but does not administer the exam. Its resources support the doctor and the portfolio, not MCQ practice. The inventory below was checked on 21 July 2026; verify current items on som.org.uk.
| SOM resource | What it is (checked 21 July 2026) | Genuine use for DOccMed |
|---|---|---|
| DOccMed Toolkit (PDF) | A guide covering getting started, supervision, setting up practice, professional development, quality assurance, resources and networking | Orientation and study-design scaffolding |
| Portfolio guidance and reading lists | Signposting to the portfolio template and endorsed reading | Building the portfolio; recency of learning |
| "Example exam papers" signposting | Points candidates to the FOM's own example questions | Directs you to the official set — SOM holds none of its own |
| Membership benefits | "Monthly e-bulletins, free webinars, mentoring… peer support" and career resources | Mentoring, teaching and a support network |
| Exam administration | None — the FOM administers the DOccMed examination | Not applicable |
The honest headline: SOM provides no MCQ questions of its own. Where the brief for a resource like this normally says "inventory the official questions and sit them under exam conditions", there is nothing to inventory in that sense. So this article does something more useful — it maps SOM's real value onto the parts of preparation it can genuinely improve, and is explicit that calibration lives elsewhere.
The DOccMed exam, briefly
The DOccMed is run by the FOM and has two assessed components plus a prerequisite FOM-approved training course. The MCQ paper (verify on fom.ac.uk) is typically around 80 best-fit questions over 1 hour 45 minutes with no negative marking, selecting the best possible fit from up to five options. The portfolio and oral component needs two written reports totalling roughly 1,500–2,000 words plus a 20-minute oral with two examiners, passed at an aggregate of 50% or more; MFOM Part 1 exempts the MCQ. SOM's resources map most naturally onto the portfolio, the supervision that supports it, and your broader development — not onto the MCQ, which is where a bank and an unseen-measurement layer come in.
Step 1: Inventory SOM's resources and label each item honestly
Run the same labelling discipline you would for any resource, and be honest about the result. Tag each SOM item "unseen", "attempted once" or "contaminated by review" — and you will find the labels barely apply, because none of it is sittable MCQ practice. The DOccMed Toolkit is a guide, not a test; the reading lists are direction, not questions; the "example papers" link merely forwards you to the FOM's own small official set. The useful inventory here is therefore not of questions but of jobs: which parts of your preparation can SOM genuinely advance? The answer is orientation, portfolio quality, mentoring and reading — a real list, just not a calibration one.
Step 2: Choose your calibration date (and where calibration actually comes from)
Because SOM provides nothing to calibrate on, fix your calibration plan around what does exist: the FOM's small example set, sat once at a chosen date three to five weeks out, and regular unseen, timed blocks from a third-party bank or iatroX. Use SOM in the run-up not for a mock but to sharpen the surrounding work — a mentoring conversation about a weak area, a webinar on a guidance-sensitive topic, a peer's read of your portfolio draft. The calibration date belongs to the FOM examples and your unseen mocks; SOM's role is to improve everything around that checkpoint.
Step 3: Reproduce exam conditions — using material SOM does not provide
Reproducing exam conditions — strict timing, no notes, best-fit response discipline — is essential, but you cannot do it with SOM material, because there is none to sit. This is the crux of using SOM without "destroying its calibration value": it has no MCQ calibration value to destroy, so stop looking for it there and protect the FOM examples instead. Run your timed conditions on unseen third-party and iatroX blocks, and let SOM do the jobs it can: giving you a mentor to debrief the mock with, and a network that has sat the same paper.
Step 4: Code every error by domain, process and format
When you sit those unseen blocks, code every error three ways — by domain, by cognitive process and by format — exactly as you would with any calibration exercise. SOM's contribution to this step is indirect but real: its mentoring and peer support can help you interpret a stubborn pattern of errors that you cannot diagnose alone, and its webinars may address a domain your coding keeps flagging. Bring your coded error log to a mentoring conversation; that is a far better use of SOM than hunting for questions it does not have.
Step 5: Map gaps to fresh third-party practice
Map each coded error to fresh, unseen practice from a bank you have not exhausted or from iatroX, testing the same principle in a new scenario. Use SOM's reading lists to fill genuine knowledge gaps — where the fault is "I never learned this" rather than "I misapplied it" — and its portfolio guidance to strengthen the written component in parallel. Keep the FOM's example questions out of daily rotation, and recognise that SOM was never in that rotation to begin with; its material sits upstream of question practice, shaping what you study and how well you are supported while you study it.
Step 6: Repeat only on genuinely unseen material
Repeat your calibration only on genuinely unseen material — new FOM releases if they appear, or fresh third-party and iatroX blocks — never by re-reading SOM guidance and mistaking familiarity for progress. SOM's resources are reference and support material you can return to freely without contaminating any measurement, precisely because they are not questions. That is the quiet advantage of a non-bank resource: you cannot spoil your calibration by re-reading the toolkit. Just do not confuse re-reading it with measuring yourself.
A seven-day plan (worked example)
This plan uses SOM resources for one defined job — orientation, portfolio support and mentoring — and iatroX for adaptive transfer practice and unseen measurement. No claim is made about any tool's internal algorithm; the numbers are illustrative.
- Monday. Read the relevant section of the SOM DOccMed Toolkit on portfolio requirements; draft one report section against the FOM template.
- Tuesday. Unseen, timed block (30 questions) in iatroX across law and fitness for work. Code every miss three ways.
- Wednesday. Attend or watch a SOM webinar on a guidance-sensitive topic; update the recency notes in your coverage table.
- Thursday. Transfer practice: unseen block on the principles you missed Tuesday, from a bank you have not exhausted. Bring the error log to a mentoring exchange if available.
- Friday. Portfolio hour with a peer or mentor's feedback (a SOM benefit); refine the clinical-case report.
- Saturday. Mixed, timed block (35 questions) across all domains covered; log high-confidence errors.
- Sunday. Review high-confidence errors only; rest. Update coverage and portfolio trackers.
Decision checklist: continue, supplement, switch or stop
- Continue using SOM for orientation, portfolio guidance, mentoring and reading throughout your preparation — these are real, ongoing benefits.
- Supplement for everything MCQ-related: SOM cannot measure or drill you, so a third-party bank plus iatroX for unseen, timed practice is not optional but essential.
- Switch your calibration entirely to the FOM examples and unseen mocks; do not look to SOM for question practice it does not provide.
- Stop expecting SOM to serve as an exam bank. Its value is support and structure; treating it as a source of questions will leave you under-practised on the paper.
Frequently asked questions
Is Society of Occupational Medicine Resources enough for DOccMed on its own? No, and the reason is categorical rather than a matter of degree: the SOM is a membership society, not the examining body and not a question bank, so it provides no MCQs to practise or calibrate on. Its resources — the DOccMed Toolkit, mentoring, webinars and reading lists — genuinely help with orientation, the portfolio and your development, but they cannot prepare you for the MCQ. For that you need the FOM's official examples plus a third-party bank and an unseen-measurement layer such as iatroX.
Which DOccMed component does Society of Occupational Medicine Resources not reproduce well? It does not reproduce the MCQ at all — there are no questions — and it does not administer or simulate the oral examination. Where it genuinely adds value is around the portfolio: the toolkit and mentoring help you structure and strengthen the written reports and understand the supervised-practice expectations. So the honest mapping is that SOM under-serves the MCQ and the oral, and over-delivers on orientation and portfolio support relative to what a question bank could offer.
How many Society of Occupational Medicine Resources questions should I complete per day for DOccMed? None, because SOM does not publish practice questions — this is the central honesty point of the article. Your daily question volume should come from a third-party DOccMed bank or from iatroX, where around 20 to 40 well-reviewed items a day is a sustainable target for a working doctor. Use SOM instead for a weekly rhythm of reading, a webinar, a portfolio review or a mentoring conversation; measure its value in study quality and support, not in questions completed.
When should I stop using Society of Occupational Medicine Resources and move to mixed mocks? You should be doing mixed mocks from early on regardless, because SOM was never providing questions to move away from. Keep using SOM's toolkit, mentoring and reading throughout — they support the portfolio and your development right up to the exam — while your MCQ calibration runs in parallel on the FOM examples and unseen third-party and iatroX blocks. The two tracks are complementary, not sequential: SOM for support, mocks for measurement, at the same time.
How should I combine Society of Occupational Medicine Resources with iatroX without duplicating practice? There is no duplication risk to manage, because SOM and iatroX do entirely different jobs: SOM provides orientation, portfolio guidance and mentoring, while iatroX provides unseen, timed MCQ measurement and transfer practice. Use SOM to decide what to study and to support your portfolio and morale; use iatroX to find out what you would actually score on unseen questions. Because SOM holds no items, you can lean on it freely without ever contaminating your iatroX measurement — they complement rather than overlap.
Editorial notes and references
Written by Dr Kolawole Tytler, NHS GP and founder of iatroX. Last checked 21 July 2026. Honesty flag: the Society of Occupational Medicine is a membership society, not the examining body and not a question bank; it publishes no MCQ practice of its own, and its DOccMed "example exam papers" signposting directs candidates to the FOM's official material. The description of SOM resources (the DOccMed Toolkit and membership benefits) reflects som.org.uk as checked on that date and should be re-verified there; exam-format facts should be verified on fom.ac.uk. Disclosure: iatroX operates a competing UK question bank and an unseen-measurement layer; here its role is confined to the unseen, timed MCQ measurement SOM does not provide, and it does not reproduce the DOccMed portfolio or oral or replace SOM's mentoring and orientation. Corrections are welcome via the feedback route on iatrox.com.
References: FOM DOccMed diploma and regulations pages (fom.ac.uk); SOM DOccMed Toolkit and resources (som.org.uk); the DOccMed content-gap checklist; Your Q-Bank Percentage Is Not Your Exam Score; the two-Q-bank rule; the iatroX comparison hub and UK question bank.