Med School Anki - Top Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

[@sidth__]

Ive started using anki recently and thinking if i was doing it right. Grateful for your video as it is telling me that i am doing the same thing the way u do it. Hoping to maximize my capacity and crack my upcoming national exam. Definitely you gain a subscriber. Keep it up!

[@alec.palmerton_md]

Thanks for your support and kind words! Anki can be an absolute game-changer if you use it properly - keep it up!!

[@ThienTruong-iy5ix]

AHHH i knew it. before I medical school I was making my own cards. The process was long but I was doing really well in those pre-med classes. Starting pre-clinicals, there was so much information to learn with so little time that I started using Anking. I think the premade was very helpful when it comes to saving time, but I didn't learn anything...maybe bite size information but not the big picture.. I'm in dedicated right now and it sucks having the need to relearn concepts because I was auto-piloting the anking card during my pre-clinical years. ughh Hopefully it's not too late to change as I'm going into rotations.

[@alec.palmerton_md]

Those are great insights, and I think a lot of people realized that with premade decks when they switch from doing more memorization heavy exams in pre-clinical years to doing the more application heavy conceptual exams like Step 1, Shelf Exams, and Step 2. It’s definitely still possible to go back to a more conceptual approach; the more you’re able to do so the better it typically will go for your Shelf exams and Step 2 as well.

[@jonathantran7102]

Wow, god bless, you have no idea how much help this is for my studies in CRNA 🙏

[@wonhee5]

I decided to use Anki again after watching this video. It changed my perspective on using Anki! I had failed multiple times to make lots of fact-based Anki cards and easily gave up. We should use it not to memorize individual facts, but to explore the connections between concepts. Thanks Dr. P.

[@milessy7874]

I am in the same boat. Thank you Dr. P!

[@sebastianobando3689]

This is life-changing information. Awesome video!

[@aitorgonzalez7450]

Very unique approach to such a common topic. Congratulations!!!

[@MisookLee-pw7cg]

You are the best Dr. as far as I know.

[@akhil7764]

I know this is a relatively older video but I have revisted it since I am currently struggling to keep up with the pace of learning in my pre-clinical year and then making flashcards at the same time. Are there any strategies recommended to reduce the time investment upfront?

[@alec.palmerton_md]

Great question, I typically recommend for pre-clinical students to use something like First Aid as a filter so that you don’t end up making 200 flashcards on one lecture. Focus on the material that is conceptual/makes sense, and/or that is in First Aid and you can cut down on the number of cards that you make.

[@DkDT-no9rf]

This video was absolutely amazing. Thank you so much for making this. I have a question related to my course. For my course, pharmacy, that’s mostly open-book (not always) how can I best focus on making Anki cards? I find that even though you don’t have to memorise content as much, it’s still helpful to do it. Should I just be putting practise questions on Anki or what’s a good approach?

[@alec.palmerton_md]

Thanks for your kind words and your question. What’s your ultimate goal with your pharmacy course? Just to pass, or to get a high score for the course, or get high USMLE scores, etc? Knowing your aim will help know the best kind of cards since different cards can help with different applications / uses

[@Ghazamoh20]

I start using anki but i do 100 cards for the lecture it is big amout but the lecture is important what is the average amount of cards that i should do for each lecture?

[@alec.palmerton_md]

If you let yourself, you can easily make 100 cards per lecture (but I wouldn't recommend it). Just like you could easily take 20 pages of notes if you wanted. In either case, that will get overwhelming quickly (although it is typically easier to recognize that when you’re writing out 20 pages of notes then it is with electronic flashcards that disappear from view as soon as you make them). Typically, I would try to set an arbitrary number per lecture that you aren’t going to exceed, like maybe 20 new cards per lecture. That way, as long as you don’t put an obscene amount of information on each card, it will force you to find the underlying concepts, and not get bogged down on low yield details. Remember, even if you remember only 30% of each lecture, as long as you focus on the most important 30%, that’s still a dramatically more than most medical students for a midterm, and hugely more than what people will remember for the USMLEs. Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good!

[@Ghazamoh20]

@alec.palmerton_md thanks alot you are true from every single word you said 30% is better than nothing ❤️❤️

[@Ghazamoh20]

Love you from Egypt

[@alec.palmerton_md]

Yes!!!

[@alec.palmerton_md]

Back at you!!

[@Abhisheksingh_102]

Can you share your deck??

[@alec.palmerton_md]

Great question - I share portions of my deck (the full deck is too overwhelming) to people who sign up for our free newsletter, which you can find at www.yousmle.com

[@jamiedaeon5665]

Not all people are doing well with visual memory made by anki and this concept of cars accumulated every day, that can be disturbing to somepeople, for me i think my studies re much better without anki But this doesn't mean that it's not good. I just mean that it didn't work with me

[@alec.palmerton_md]

For sure, there are definitely better and worse ways to use Anki, and I’ve personally experienced many, many inefficient ways to use the program!

[@KevinLopezMS]

Awesome video! What are your Anki settings? Are there any specific settings that you recommend?

[@alec.palmerton_md]

Great question! I may make this into a longer video in the future, but for now I would just say that my main settings are old reviews: 9999/day (so my old reviews aren’t capped) and doing no more than 50 new cards per day to make sure that I don’t get overwhelmed with old reviews. Other than that, I don’t change any of the default settings, really

[@KevinLopezMS]

@@alec.palmerton_md Thank you!!! And yes, a video on this would be amazing!

[@jonathanalverio]

💪🔥