Medical certification — in the LEK question base
Certifying incapacity for work, sick leave, social insurance benefits, certification paperwork.
- Questions in base
- 86
- Share of base
- 2.8%
- Roughly on the paper
- ~4
The "on the paper" figure assumes the 140 questions drawn from the base are distributed in proportion to its composition. CEM does not publish per-field quotas, so treat it as an order of magnitude rather than a promise.
Required reading — medical certification
The list CEM publishes for this field. Questions are written from these titles, so where a lecture and a listed textbook disagree, the textbook decides.
They appear here in Polish, exactly as CEM lists them — these are the specific editions that count, and most have no English translation. That is not an oversight on our part; it is the central practical problem of sitting this exam in English.
- 01 Anna Wilmowska-Pietruszyńska — Orzecznictwo lekarskie, wyd. 5, Edra Urban & Partner, 2017
- 02 Anna Jacek, Emilia Sarnacka — Prawo medyczne i orzecznictwo lekarskie. Repetytorium do LEK i LDEK, PZWL, 2015
Source: the CEM reading list . As at August 2026 — check before your session in case CEM has revised it.
Sample questions from the base
Ten items from CEM's public listing for this field, in the official English wording used on the exam paper. The correct answer is highlighted. Detailed explanations live in our Polish application (source of preparation).
The period in which the occurrence of documented disease symptoms entitles to diagnose occupational disease despite a prior termination of the job inducing exposure to occupational disease is:
- A 10 days in the cases of acute poisoning.
- B 6 months in the case of acute radiation sickness with lesions of inflammatory or inflammatory-necrotic nature affecting the skin and subcutaneous tissue.
- C 1 year in the case of bronchial asthma. ✓
- D 5 years in the case of chronic diseases of the vocal organs caused by excessive voice exploitation lasting at least 15 years.
- E 10 years in the case of decompression sickness, caused by working in the conditions of elevated atmospheric pressure.
Which of the statements below is true about the legal criteria for an accident resulting from an external cause that happened on the way to or from the workplace to be formally considered as such?
- A the accident has to occur on the shortest route to work even if, for commuting reasons, it is not the most convenient one.
- B the law does not apply to work performed outside normal working hours.
- C the way is not a way to or from the place of learning.
- D the normal eating place is also considered to be the way to or from work. ✓
- E the route cannot be broken by life reasons, e.g. transporting children to kindergarten.
There are three levels of disability - severe, moderate and mild. One of the criteria qualifying for mild disability is:
- A necessity to provide help including social functioning, i.e. dependence of the disable on their environment.
- B temporary help in social functioning - necessity to provide indispensable help (i.e. caring help that supports everyday activities, curing process and rehabilitation) in health-dependent periods of time.
- C inability to work or ability to work only under protected work conditions or in conditions requiring temporal or partial help from other persons.
- D incapacity to work, i.e. total incapacity to work for money due to physical, psychiatric or mental impairment of the body's fitness.
- E decreased ability to work (whether for money or not) due to impairment of the body's fitness essentially lowering work efficiency at workplace compared with a healthy person of similar qualifications. ✓
The supervision over the compliance of the Social Insurance Institution (ZUS) with applicable regulations is exercised by:
- A the Minister of Health.
- B the Minister competent in social security. ✓
- C the Prime Minister.
- D the Supervisory Board of the Social Insurance Institution.
- E the President of the Social Insurance Institution.
Work accident insurance is obligatory for:
- A employees. ✓
- B unemployed person on unemployment benefits.
- C unemployed person taking integration benefits.
- D Members of the European Parliament.
- E Members of the Council of Europe.
In accordance with the Law on old-age and disability pensions paid out from the Social Insurance Fund the statement issued by an SIF certifying doctor and medical board about partial or complete incapacity for work is the basis for the pension granting institution to grant:
- A sickness allowance.
- B rehabilitation allowance.
- C one-time indemnity payment due to a work accident or an occupational disease.
- D work incapacity pension. ✓
- E nursing allowance.
In the case of death of an insured person, the relation between his/her death and the accident is determined by:
- A a ZUS (Social Insurance Institution) evaluating doctor or the Medical Commission of ZUS. ✓
- B an NFZ (National Health Fund) evaluating doctor or the Medical Commission of NFZ.
- C a General Practitioner.
- D an occupational medicine specialist.
- E the Medical Commission operating at Medical Chambers.
People under the age of 16 will be classified as disabled if their physical fitness is impaired due to a birth defect or bodily damage with the expected duration of more than:
- A 3 months.
- B 6 months.
- C 9 months.
- D 12 months. ✓
- E 15 months.
SIF (ZUS) certifying doctors control the correctness of issuing medical rulings on temporary incapacity for work. However, to this purpose, they are not allowed:
- A to examine the insured person.
- B to refer the insured person to SIF(ZUS) consultant doctor for specific examinations.
- C to refer the insured person for hospital observations. ✓
- D to demand from the doctor who issued the ruling relevant medical documentations, information and explanations concerning the insured person.
- E to order auxiliary examinations within the prescribed period.
An accident resulting in a severe damage to an employee's body, such as loss of reproductive capacity or mental illness is:
- A minor accident at work.
- B moderate accident at work.
- C serious accident at work. ✓
- D isolated accident at work.
- E group accident at work.
Full listing for this field contains 86 questions — these ten are a preview. Detailed rationales, spaced-repetition scheduling and citations are in the Polish app (English coverage is in progress).
How to get through this field
86 questions is a finite, countable set — at twenty a day you are through it in 5 days. The difficulty is not the volume. It is that the CEM listing gives you the questions and nothing else: no answer key, no explanation and no indication which of the books above the answer came from.
In our bank every question in this field carries an explanation and a citation to its source. Instead of memorising a letter you see why the other four options are wrong — and that is the part which transfers to the 60 unpublished questions you cannot prepare for in advance. The English edition is in progress; these pages come first.