ReviseFCPS1
CPSP Part 1 Prep

Editorial policy

This page explains how the free clinical tools and clinical pathways on ReviseFCPS1 are sourced, built, reviewed and corrected. It applies to everything under /tools and /pathways. If you are about to act on a dose you found here, this is the page that tells you how much weight it can carry.

1. How we choose sources
2. Why we publish the delta, not a summary
3. What the divergence badges mean
4. What the evidence tiers mean
5. What "clinically reviewed" means
6. Superseded guidelines and review dates
7. Where we stop, and what we refuse to invent
8. Errors in the source documents
9. Independence and disclosure
10. Corrections

1. How we choose sources

Every page is built from a primary source that is named on the page itself. We work down this order, and we say which rung we ended up on:

1A current Pakistani national guideline or programme document — the National TB Programme, the Expanded Programme on Immunization, a Ministry of NHSR&C strategic plan.
2A Pakistani professional society guideline — the Pakistan Chest Society, the Pakistan Hypertension League, the Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists Pakistan, MMIDSP.
3Published Pakistani data — peer-reviewed susceptibility series, national surveys, local cohorts.
4A regional or international guideline — WHO, GINA, GOLD, IDSA, NICE, ADA — used where nothing Pakistani exists, and labelled as such.

We read the primary document rather than a summary of it. Where a guideline is only available as a scanned PDF with no text layer, we render the pages and read them, and the page says so. Where a document could not be obtained at all, the page says that too, names what was used instead, and does not pretend the gap is not there.

2. Why we publish the delta, not a summary

ADA, NICE, IDSA, GINA and GOLD already cover these conditions exhaustively, and they do it better than we would. Restating them adds nothing.

What is missing is the part that changes at the Pakistani bedside: the drug that is not available here, the resistance figure that makes the standard empiric choice the wrong one, the regimen a national body has declined to adopt, the score that assumes a laboratory the district hospital does not have. That is what these pages are for. Every recommendation carries a badge saying how it relates to the international position.

3. What the divergence badges mean

Every recommendation on a clinical pathway carries one of four badges:

Same as international guideline No local modification — the international recommendation applies here unchanged.
Pakistan-adapted A national body has deliberately changed this for Pakistani conditions, or availability and cost force a different choice. The reason is always stated.
Local data only No national guideline covers this. The recommendation rests on published Pakistani surveillance or cohort data, cited so you can weigh it.
National guideline outdated A Pakistani guideline exists but predates the evidence that now matters — most often because resistance has moved since it was written.
An unrecognised badge falls back to Local data only by design, so a recommendation can never falsely claim to match an international guideline it has not been checked against.

4. What the evidence tiers mean

The poisoning tools use a different system, because the four poisonings they cover rest on wildly different evidence — one has a formal position paper behind it, another has only case reports. Presenting them with equal visual authority would be dishonest, so every claim carries its tier:

Guideline / position paper From a formal, graded guideline or an international position paper.
Cohort or series Supported by cohort studies or substantial case series, but not by a formal guideline.
Case reports / expert opinion Described in case reports, small series or review articles. Treat as low-certainty and weigh against your own judgement.
Where the tier is unknown, it falls back to the weakest tier, not the strongest.

5. What "clinically reviewed" means

Every tool and pathway is read and signed off by a named doctor before it goes live. Their name and the date of sign-off appear on the page, and each of them has a public profile listing every page they have signed.

What a review is

A qualified doctor has read the page against its cited primary source and confirmed that it represents that source accurately — the doses, the thresholds, the sequence and the caveats.

What a review is not

Reviewers are matched to scope: the respiratory pathways are signed by a doctor covering respiratory and infectious disease, the obstetric pathway by an obstetrics and gynaecology trainee. Where we do not have an appropriate reviewer for a page, that page stays in beta and says so rather than borrowing someone else's name.

6. Superseded guidelines and review dates

A guideline that was current when a page was written may not be current when you read it. Two things follow from that.

First, every page names the edition and date of the document it was built from, not just its title. Second, when a source is superseded we rebuild the page rather than patch it, and we reset the review date to null — because the previous sign-off covered different clinical content and does not carry over. The page returns to beta until a doctor reviews it again.

A worked example. Our pneumonia pathway originally argued that the national guideline's "amoxicillin or a macrolide" first line had half expired against Pakistani pneumococcal resistance. In March 2026 the Pakistan Chest Society published a new edition that dropped macrolide monotherapy outright and put doxycycline in its place. We rebuilt the page on the new algorithm, reset it to beta, and had it re-reviewed — rather than leaving an argument standing that the guideline itself had settled.

Where a Pakistani guideline is overdue for its own stated review, the page says so and carries the National guideline outdated badge.

7. Where we stop, and what we refuse to invent

Every page states its scope — which ages, which settings, what it does not cover. Beyond that, there are things we will not do:

8. Errors in the source documents

Occasionally a published guideline contains an obvious error. Where correcting it is unambiguous and leaving it would be dangerous, we correct it and say so on the page, in the open.

A worked example. The national COPD guideline gives home-treatment salbutamol as "100 mg/puff" and ipratropium as "20–40 mg". Both are micrograms — a 100 mg salbutamol actuation does not exist. Our page prints micrograms and states that the typo is in the source. We do not silently reproduce a dose that could harm someone, and we do not silently correct one either.

Where a document is a scan and we have transcribed a table by eye, the page says that too, and tells you to verify against the original before prescribing.

9. Independence and disclosure

The clinical tools and pathways are free to use, require no account, and carry no advertising. No third party pays for a mention, a placement or a recommendation on them.

Where a source guideline has a commercial relationship, we disclose it on the page that uses it. Our hypertension pathway, for example, notes that the Pakistan Hypertension League guideline was produced in collaboration with a pharmaceutical company and that the published PDF carries antihypertensive advertising — alongside the counterweights, that it is peer reviewed and endorsed by the Pakistan Cardiac Society. You can then weigh the drug-class advice knowing both.

ReviseFCPS1 is a paid FCPS Part 1 preparation platform. The tools and pathways are not part of that product and are not gated behind it.

10. Corrections

If you find something wrong — a dose, a threshold, a misread table, a guideline we have missed or one that has been superseded — email support@revisefcps1.com. Tell us the page and what the correct position is, with the source if you have it.

What happens next: we check it against the primary source, correct the page, and change the review date. If the correction is substantive, the page returns to beta until a reviewer signs the new version. We would rather be corrected by a reader than be wrong on a ward.

None of this makes any page on this site a clinical decision. These pages help you apply published guidance and local data quickly. The patient in front of you, your hospital protocol and your own judgement come first, every time.
Last updated 6 August 2026. See also our clinical reviewers, our clinical pathways and our clinical tools.