Perhaps med school isn’t the best place for someone who dreads memorization, or hasn’t been in school for four years, or is frustrated by having to learn the minutia of molecules and mechanisms when these seem like Google-able factoids only tangentially related to why one wants to be a doctor. Perhaps Mod 1 seems like a daunting trial that you must endure while figuring out what exactly about your studying habits will need to change for med school (because everyone says they must), but no one has actually explained what that means in practical terms. Perhaps you are like me.
Luckily for me (and perhaps luckily for you), there is Anki.
Anki is a flashcard system for the modern med student. Revered for its spaced-repetition algorithms and made famous by Med School Reddit and “How I Study In Med School” YouTube videos, it is something you will either love or hate (or both love and hate during exam weeks). You will probably try it at some point in medical school—though some people escape Mods 1 and 2 without using it, they may later find it helpful for clerkships or Step 1. Comfort with 2000s-era graphical user interfaces is preferred but not required for use.
I want to be clear here: no matter what the Internet says, there is no right way to use Anki. You can diligently learn new flashcards and review old cards every day—as the app is intended to be used—or you can speed through a deck for an entire course 2 days before an exam because life happens (I have done both). You can use decks from prior PSOM classes and/or other med school decks if you don’t like making your own flashcards, or you can make your own cards if that helps you learn better. You can do a few batches of cards spaced throughout the day, or block off a chunk of time to sit down and get through everything at once.
I suggest coming up with a plan that you think will work for you, and then changing said plan if it doesn’t. Do not beat yourself up when you fall behind—it will happen and it will be okay. Also, go to the Anki tutorial in a few weeks (currently scheduled for Thursday Sept 2nd), and don’t be afraid to ask your classmates and upperclassmen for help!
Regardless of whether you choose to try Anki or not, I can guarantee that you will find an approach to studying that works for you. You will get through your first set of exams, change your habits as new courses start and old ones finish, and learn how to gauge what “pass now, pass later” means to you. There is a lot of studying in med school, but there is a lot of fun that happens here too. I wish you the best of luck in your journeys, and hope that you make amazing friends and create wonderful memories along the way.
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P.S. If you are now feeling curious about Anki but apprehensive about getting started, here are my suggestions. Note that the prior statement regarding “no right way to use Anki” applies here as well! I wanted to offer some tactical steps that worked for me, but that doesn’t mean this has to be the way you approach Anki too.
TLDR: Go to the Anki tutorial in a few weeks and ask your classmates and upperclassmen for help!!
Getting set up:
- Download Anki onto your computer from apps.ankiweb.net. Woo, first step complete!!
- Install some addons. I highly recommend Hierarchical Tags 2 (Anki 2.1 Code: 594329229) and Image Occlusion Enhanced (Anki 2.1 Code: 1374772155). To install an addon, go to “Tools,” then “Addons”, then “Get Addons.” Then copy-paste the code and click “Install.”
- Restart Anki so the addons load.
- Download a deck from a prior PSOM class and poke around to see how Anki works. Clicking on a deck will start the flashcards, and clicking on “Browse” will show you all of the cards in your collection.
- Tada—you are now using Anki!
- If you want to use Anki on your iPad and/or phone, set up AnkiWeb so you can sync from your computer (instructions here: https://docs.ankiweb.net/syncing.html). Then, download the Anki app on whatever devices you want. NOTE: the iOS app is called AnkiMobile Flashcards and costs $25. I promise you, if you like Anki, the iOS app is a worthy drop-in-the-bucket-sized investment into your medical education (and honestly underpriced for how much I used it). Get it.
- Credit to medshamin.com for many of these set up steps (https://medshamim.com/med/anki-step-one)
Okay but how do I actually study:
- I use pre-made cards. At the start of a course, I download a deck from a prior PSOM class and suspend all of the cards in it (I find this is easier to do on my computer). Suspending cards means that they are not presented for you to learn or review.
- As the course progresses, I un-suspend cards that are relevant to the day’s lecture material—these are now “new cards.” Usually this is by tag (i.e., un-suspend all of the cards tagged “Week 1” or “Lecture 1” or something like that). If a deck doesn’t have tags, you can try sorting cards by “Date Created” and un-suspending each day as the course progresses. The order of our lectures usually doesn’t change that much from year to year, so this will generally let you find cards as they were created.
- After un-suspending cards on my computer, I sync to my iPad/iPhone and I try to get through all of the new cards every day. Once you correctly answer a new card, it gets moved into your “review cards.” Review cards are where the spaced repetition really comes in—the more frequently you get a given card right, the less often you see it. I try to do review cards as I have time (I think it is best to do all of the review cards every day too so that they don’t pile up day after day, but that doesn’t always happen for me).
- I try to catch up each weekend so that I start every week with no lingering cards to learn or review.
Other fun tips and tricks:
- Google is your friend. I did not use Anki prior to med school but found lots of help online. The Anki Manual is excellent for FAQs (https://docs.ankiweb.net/), and I found several med school Anki “getting started” guides that were quite helpful as well.
- If you want more personalization, you can fiddle with Anki settings and use keyboard shortcuts, but you also do not have to do that.
- If you’re feeling ~fancy~ you can get a game controller to work with Anki, perfect for lounging on the couch with your favorite snack and cranking through the many days of review cards you have yet to do.
Danielle Feffer is an MS2 at the Perelman School of Medicine.
Image by Tracy Du, an MS2 at the Perelman School of Medicine.
