This audit is for trainees choosing or already using Licence Medical for the SCE in Respiratory Medicine who want an honest read on what its question style transfers to the real paper. The good news up front: Licence Medical does genuinely cover Respiratory Medicine SCE — it is one of a range of specialty banks the platform publishes — so this is a coverage audit, not a "they don't cover it" warning. The principal limitation is different: the platform's live question count, price and access period are not clearly confirmable on its public pages, so you must verify them yourself, and there is no advertised adaptive or AI feature to rely on.
What Licence Medical offers for SCE Respiratory Medicine right now
Licence Medical is a question-bank platform for specialty exams. Its specialty range, confirmed on license-medical.com, includes Respiratory Medicine SCE alongside Acute Medicine, Medical Oncology, Palliative Medicine, Neurology, Rheumatology, Endocrinology and Diabetes, the European boards in Nephrology (ESENeph) and Gastroenterology, and MRCP Parts 1 and 2. The snapshot below is current-state; treat figures as vendor-reported and verify before relying on them.
| Attribute | Licence Medical — Respiratory Medicine SCE (vendor-reported, 21 July 2026) |
|---|---|
| Specialty covered | Yes — Respiratory Medicine SCE is a listed bank |
| Live question count | Not clearly confirmable on the public product page — verify the current count on license-medical.com |
| Price | Not clearly confirmable publicly — verify current price on license-medical.com |
| Access period | Not clearly confirmable publicly — verify on license-medical.com |
| Stated features | "Detailed explanations" and "structured core knowledge with updated guidelines" (vendor wording) |
| Adaptive / AI | No adaptive or AI feature claimed — do not assume one exists |
Because the count and price could not be independently confirmed, this audit does not state them; where a figure matters to your decision, check the product page directly rather than trusting a third-party number. For comparison, a genuine SCE specialist, StudyPRN, reports a respiratory SCE bank of around 682 single-best-answer questions at £199 for twelve months with a 100-question timed mock (vendor-reported, 21 July 2026) — a useful benchmark for what "adequate volume" looks like in this specialty.
The exam this bank has to transfer to
The SCE in Respiratory Medicine is two papers of 100 best-of-five questions each — 200 in total — three hours per paper, one day, computer-based on Surpass, one mark per correct answer, no negative marking. The authoritative content map is the Federation's SCE Respiratory Medicine blueprint, with the heaviest weight on diffuse parenchymal lung disease (around 25), then COPD, imaging, physiology, pulmonary infections and thoracic oncology at around 20 each. A bank transfers well only if its style, difficulty and coverage match this target.
Record the live count — then break it down by blueprint, not by headline
Do not judge a bank by its headline total. A bank of "1,000 questions" that puts 300 into asthma and COPD and 20 into DPLD is worse for this exam than a smaller bank matched to the blueprint. Because Licence Medical's count is not publicly confirmable, the practical step is to reconstruct the distribution yourself from the bank's own topic tags once you have access, and lay it against the official weighting:
| Blueprint domain | Official weight (of 200) | Bank questions (fill from tags) | Adequate? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Diffuse parenchymal lung disease | 25 | ||
| COPD | 20 | ||
| Imaging | 20 | ||
| Physiology | 20 | ||
| Pulmonary infections | 20 | ||
| Thoracic oncology | 20 | ||
| Pleura and mediastinum | 15 | ||
| Pulmonary vascular disease | 15 | ||
| Occupational and environmental disease | 10 | ||
| Tuberculosis and mycobacterial disease | 10 | ||
| Other (ethics, pharmacology, statistics) | 10 | ||
| Asthma / cystic fibrosis / sleep | 5 each |
If any high-weight domain is thin, that is where the bank does not transfer, regardless of the headline count.
Sample the question style
Work a stratified sample of 40 to 60 items and judge the style against the exam, not against how satisfying the questions feel:
- Recall versus application. SCE items test interpretation and clinical problem-solving, not single-fact recall. If Licence Medical's stems reward memorised facts, they under-train the cognitive level the paper uses.
- Stem length and realism. Real stems are clinical vignettes with investigations. Short, artificial stems inflate your speed and your score.
- Option plausibility. Best-of-five depends on close, plausible distractors. Obvious wrong answers make the bank easier than the exam and flatter your percentage.
- Image and data interpretation. Check whether items present actual chest films, HRCT, spirometry traces, sleep data and blood gases, or merely describe them in words. Described data does not train interpretation.
- Management sequencing. Many marks turn on the next best step. Confirm the bank tests prioritisation, not just diagnosis.
Jurisdiction and recency
Take a stratified sample across guidance-sensitive topics — asthma and COPD management, ILD antifibrotics, pulmonary hypertension classification, tuberculosis regimens, lung cancer systemic therapy — and check the explanations against current UK sources: NICE, BTS/SIGN, and the SmPC/eMC for medicines detail. Record the date you checked. The vendor states its content reflects "updated guidelines", but that is a claim to verify, not to assume; guideline-sensitive respiratory topics move quickly and an out-of-date explanation is worse than none.
The format gap: state it plainly
A standard text-based question bank — Licence Medical included — cannot fully prepare you for the data-interpretation skills the paper embeds. It can test whether you recognise the right answer among five options when a spirometry pattern, a CT appearance, a sleep study or a blood gas is described or shown, but recognising an answer is not the same as generating the interpretation unaided. Imaging (around 20 marks) and physiology (around 20) reward candidates who can read the primary data fluently, and that fluency comes from deliberate practice on real traces and films with feedback, not from selecting options. Treat any bank as a knowledge and recognition tool; train the data skills separately.
Duplication and contamination
Audit for repetition. If the bank recycles the same concepts across near-duplicate stems, your rising percentage may reflect recognition rather than learning. Two signals to watch: your accuracy climbing while your speed on new topics does not, and a sense of déjà vu on "new" questions. When bank completion turns into pattern recognition, the score stops measuring competence. The fix is to reserve unseen material — from a second source or a cross-specialty layer such as iatroX — for measurement, so you always have questions the bank has not already shown you.
Best-fit matrix: where this bank belongs in your stack
| Use case | Is Licence Medical a fit? |
|---|---|
| Foundation building (first structured pass) | Plausible, if coverage checks out against the blueprint |
| First-pass primary bank | Reasonable, once you have verified volume and recency |
| Second bank for a confirmed weak domain | Useful if it is strong where your first bank is thin — apply the two-Q-bank rule |
| Retake after a near miss | Only if it adds genuinely new items, not repetition of what you have seen |
| Final unseen simulation | Weak fit — by the end you will have seen its items; use fresh unseen material to simulate |
A seven-day plan for trainees revising around clinical work
Give Licence Medical one defined job — structured domain practice with explanations — and iatroX the unseen-measurement job. No proprietary-algorithm claim is made; the spacing is re-testing your own misses.
| Day | Job with Licence Medical | Job with iatroX (unseen transfer) |
|---|---|---|
| Saturday | Timed 50-item block in your weakest domain; read explanations | Short unseen mixed block; log misses |
| Sunday | 40-item block in the second weakest domain | 20-min unseen block, different domain |
| Monday (clinical) | 20 items over lunch on the day's topic | — |
| Tuesday (clinical) | — | 20-min spaced re-test of Saturday's misses |
| Wednesday (clinical) | 20 items, imaging-tagged | Imaging/physiology drill on fresh data |
| Thursday (clinical) | — | 60-min timed mixed block at exam pace |
| Friday | Review flagged explanations against NICE/BTS | Re-code the week; decide continue / supplement / switch / stop |
Decision checklist: continue, supplement, switch or stop
- Continue if the blueprint breakdown is adequate, explanations are current, and your unseen accuracy is rising.
- Supplement if one or two high-weight domains are thin — add a second source there only, under the two-Q-bank rule, rather than re-buying breadth you already have.
- Switch if the sample shows recall-heavy, short-stem, easy-distractor items or out-of-date guidance that do not transfer to the paper.
- Stop buying new banks when you have adequate coverage and your limiting factor is consolidation and unseen simulation, not more seen questions.
Frequently asked questions
Is Licence Medical enough for SCE Respiratory Medicine on its own? Possibly, but only after you verify it. It genuinely covers the specialty, but its public question count, price and access period could not be confirmed as at 21 July 2026, and it advertises no adaptive feature. If, once you have access, its blueprint breakdown is adequate in every high-weight domain and its explanations are current against NICE and BTS/SIGN, it can serve as a primary bank; if it is thin in DPLD, imaging or physiology, add a second unseen source there. Confirm the figures on license-medical.com rather than taking any third-party number, including this article's, on trust.
Which SCE Respiratory Medicine component does Licence Medical not reproduce well? The data-interpretation skill behind the imaging and physiology items, and end-stage unseen simulation. Like any text-based bank it can test recognition of a described or displayed spirometry trace, CT pattern, sleep study or blood gas, but it cannot build the fluency to interpret those primary data unaided, and by the end of your preparation you will have seen its items, so it cannot serve as a fresh final mock. Train the data skills and your final simulation elsewhere.
How many Licence Medical questions should I complete per day for SCE Respiratory Medicine? Set the quota by domain need and time to exam, not by a round number. In the final month, 40 to 60 questions a day around clinical work is realistic for most trainees, weighted towards your under-performing high-weight domains rather than spread evenly. Quality of review matters more than volume: a smaller number of questions with careful, source-checked explanation review beats a larger number skimmed. Always keep some unseen material back for measurement.
When should I stop using Licence Medical and move to mixed mocks? Move to mixed, timed mocks once you have adequate coverage and your errors are becoming careless rather than knowledge-based, and certainly for the final week or two. Because you will have seen much of any single bank by then, your simulation should use fresh, unseen questions — a second source or a cross-specialty unseen layer — so the mock measures competence, not memory. You can keep using Licence Medical for targeted domain top-ups even while your simulations move to unseen material.
How should I combine Licence Medical with iatroX without duplicating practice? Split the roles cleanly. Licence Medical is your specialty-specific drill with explanations; iatroX is the cross-specialty, unseen-question and spaced-retrieval layer that measures whether that drill transferred. Because iatroX is not a specialty-specific respiratory SCE bank, it will not duplicate Licence Medical's respiratory items — it supplies the unseen mixed blocks and spaced re-tests of your misses that a bank you have already worked cannot. Use Licence Medical to learn a domain, then an iatroX unseen block to confirm it, following the two-Q-bank rule so you never pay twice for the same coverage.
Editorial notes and references
Written by Dr Kolawole Tytler, NHS GP and founder of iatroX. Last checked 21 July 2026. Licence Medical's question count, price and access period could not be independently confirmed on its public pages as at 21 July 2026 and are therefore not stated here; StudyPRN's respiratory SCE figures (around 682 questions, £199 for twelve months) are vendor-reported as at the same date. Verify all vendor figures on the relevant product page before relying on them. Disclosure: iatroX operates a competing question and clinical-knowledge platform; in this audit its role is confined to unseen, cross-specialty measurement and spaced retrieval — the jobs a specialty drill bank does not claim — not a specialty-specific respiratory SCE bank. Corrections are welcome via the feedback route on iatrox.com.
References: the Federation of Royal Colleges of Physicians (thefederation.uk) SCE Respiratory Medicine blueprint and examination page; Licence Medical specialty exam pages (license-medical.com); StudyPRN and BMJ OnExamination respiratory SCE pages; NICE and BTS/SIGN respiratory guidance; iatroX, The Two-Q-Bank Rule; iatroX, Your Q-Bank Percentage Is Not Your Exam Score; iatroX comparison hub.
Run a fresh, timed SCE Respiratory Medicine block in iatroX →