Exercise Medicine: Following FSEM’s Successful Diploma launch
The Diploma in Exercise Medicine
Physical inactivity causes significant health-related problems. With an ageing population, the role of exercise medicine as a therapeutic intervention becomes ever more important, as a powerful tool in the prevention and treatment of disease.
As part of the Faculty of Sport and Exercise Medicine’s (FSEM) overarching goal to promote a more physically active nation, the Diploma in Exercise Medicine (DipExM) was created, allowing professionals working in healthcare to test their competence in Exercise Medicine. It sets the standard for Exercise Medicine and physical activity knowledge across the breadth of healthcare professions, a benchmark against which both commissioners and patients can quality assure. The clinical application of this knowledge aims to improve the standard of care and help our patients become more active.
Following years of extensive development, the first diet was run in early 2024 by FSEM. There were huge levels of interest and a healthy number of exam candidates, coming from a number of nations globally. After this successful launch, the work continues to grow the Diploma in Exercise Medicine, with the next sitting taking place in February 2025.
Why take the Diploma?
As with all of FSEM’s diploma examinations, the Diploma in Exercise Medicine is a great way to demonstrate knowledge in this particular area of sport and exercise medicine. Taking the Diploma provides evidence of theoretical knowledge in exercise medicine and shows understanding of how it is applied in clinical practice. It enhances knowledge across the breadth of exercise medicine, improving the quality of care provided to patients in this area. Crucially, this is the only examination that focuses on and recognises skills and knowledge in exercise medicine alone. Therefore, sitting the Diploma will provide the opportunity to demonstrate specific expertise in this remit.
Huw Evans is a Consultant Anaesthetist at University Hospital of Wales, Cardiff. He took the Exercise Medicine Diploma in 2023. Here are his thoughts on the new exam.
Why did you want to take the FSEM Exercise Medicine Diploma?
Exercise medicine is an important cog in the prevention and management of disease. I try to promote the importance of exercise as much as I can in my day-to-day practice. I wanted to pass the Diploma in Exercise Medicine to ensure the advice I was giving was correct and up to date. The Diploma in Exercise Medicine would also provide me with a degree of credibility in the field.
How does Exercise Medicine fit into your job and why is it important to you?
My day job is as a consultant Anaesthetist in the NHS, and I am lead for cardiopulmonary exercise testing in my health board. Fit people do better around the time of surgery, so we test patients who are undergoing major surgery. We aim to exclude major comorbidities, assess risk, and also guide prehabilitation. Most of the patients I see have low levels of fitness, and they don’t have significant cardiac or respiratory disease causing them to be unfit. They are just unfit due to not moving and exercising enough, therefore giving advice so that they can increase the levels of physical activity before their operation and reduce their risk is really important.
What have you got out of the exam and how has this impacted your work within your role?
The Diploma not only improved my knowledge, but it also made me look at the way that I share that knowledge and information with patients and colleagues. The syllabus includes the understanding of behavioural change theories in clinical practice. The perioperative period is a good time for patients to make long term behavioural changes and the success of this is ensuring advice is given in the correct way and in a supportive environment. I would like to think that this aspect of my clinical practice has improved as a result of working for the Diploma in Exercise use Medicine.
Dougie Williamson, an FY3 Doctor and Clinical Teaching Fellow, also completed the first diet of the Diploma:
“I pursued the FSEM Exercise Diploma Exam to build my confidence in prescribing physical activity for patients across various life stages and with complex health conditions.
I believe that exercise medicine is vastly underutilised and underappreciated in current medical practice and holds immense potential in preventing and treating a wide range of diseases.
Since completing the exam, I have integrated the knowledge gained into my daily clinical practice. This has enabled me to adopt a more holistic approach to patient care, and I feel that I have made a significant positive contribution to my patients overall health.”
Syllabus Content
The Diploma is an assessment of knowledge and clinical problem solving, and targets practitioners who wish to demonstrate their knowledge and understanding of exercise medicine. Across the syllabus candidates should be able to describe and apply knowledge in community and secondary healthcare clinical settings:
1. Physical Activity Guidelines and Epidemiology
2. Physiology of exercise and nutrition in health and disease
3. Physical Activity in Long term conditions
4. Special groups and considerations
5. Behaviour Change theories
6. Risks and Contraindications
7. Systems Approach
Who can take the Diploma?
The DipExM is open to a wide range of health care professionals to reflect the role that many different disciplines can have in exercise medicine. This includes Doctors, Physiotherapists, Advanced Nurse Practitioners and Allied Health Professionals. Candidates with different professional backgrounds will be considered for the DipExM but this is at the discretion of FSEM. It is also open to health care professionals based in countries outside the UK that hold appropriate registration in their home country.
In general candidates considering taking the DipExM should have an active interest in the theory of exercise medicine and experience in delivering exercise medicine as part of their clinical practice.
95 Candidates sat the first DipExM in February 2024, of which 40% were GPs, 10% Consultant Physicians, 26% Training Grade Doctors and 9% physiotherapists. 15% of candidates were from overseas.
More information on eligibility, including requirements for registration can be found on the FSEM website. Any queries regarding eligibility should be directed to exams@fsem.ac.uk
Details of next sitting
Applications Open: 2nd December 2024
Exam Sitting: 18th February 2025
Format
The 90 minute online examination will be conducted in English and will be based around UK clinical practice and national guidelines, consisting of two written papers of Multiple Choice Questions. The pass mark for the examination is pre-set using modern standard setting methods. To achieve a pass, candidates must meet or exceed the pass mark set for the paper.
Diploma Leadership Team
Lead: Dr Christopher Speers (Consultant in Sport and Exercise Medicine)
Deputy Lead: Dr Dan Fitzpatrick (Specialist Registrar in Sport and Exercise Medicine)
Exams and Standards Manager: Larissa Kennel
Communications and Marketing Officer: James Brownlee
Chair, FSEM Exams Committee: Dr Alastair Nicol (Consultant in Sport and Exercise Medicine)
Acknowledgement to Question writers/ standard setting
Development of this examination would not have been possible without the dedicated volunteer question writers and standard setters. We are indebted to the whole team and wanted to express our thanks.