6 Anki Decks That All Medical Students Need to Use
I know how difficult it can be to find high-quality flashcards for your studies, but I’ve done the hard work for you; I have collected the best medical school Anki decks out there that cover everything from anatomy to clinical medicine. They are perfect for any medical student who wants to ace their exams!
Contents
Quick Summary
If you are in a rush then here is a quick summary of everything I talk about.
Here is a list of the Anki decks which I mention in this article and a summary of what they are:
- AnKing Step 1 & 2 – The perfect deck for US students studying for the USMLE. However, you can still benefit from this deck even if you live in another country. It covers all the bases for a solid grasp of medicine.
- Rubyfinals – Made for UK Medical Schools, this set of Anki decks is a conversion of the original Flashfinals Anki decks.
- USUHS – This is one of the highest-reviewed Anki Decks on AnkiWeb and still gets positive comments to this day.
- Dope Anatomy – This anatomy deck is excellent for learning the general structures of the body.
- Netter Better – This is another anatomy deck based on Netter’s Atlas 7th edition and has 21,000+ image occlusion flashcards.
- SALT – Perfect for those with a subscription to Sketchy
Bonus Decks:
- DIP Deck: A Divine Intervention Podcasts Anki Deck for the Wards
- AnatoKing v1 [King of Anatomy Decks]
- The COVID ICU Deck V5.2
- Marigoldie’s M4 Emergency Medicine Deck (EM Secrets)
- Cyan: A new Anki deck based on the Essential Examination “Blue Book”
- Canki: A new Anki deck based on Canada Q Bank and the MCC Practice Exams
I have loads of other articles on Anki, which you can check out here.
Introduction
This section briefly discusses how and why you should use some Anki decks.
What is an Anki Deck?
Pre-made Anki decks are sets of flashcards created by other students across the globe. They are fantastic as you don’t have to spend hundreds of hours making cards from scratch.
How to Download and Install Anki Decks
Installing Anki decks is easy.
Firstly, download the deck from wherever you found the link. This will either be on AnkiWeb or a website like Revising Rubies. Then, you can select “Get Shared” at the bottom of the Anki homepage. This will open a window where you can select your downloaded file.
It may take a few minutes to download, depending on how big the premade deck is.
How to Find More Anki Decks
I have another article that lists the 22 Best Anki Decks of All Time. The decks are more general than this list and cover everything from Geography to Arts.
Other than that, you can find decks on AnkiWeb. You can search by category and see all the decks that have ever been uploaded there.
If you want medical-related decks, I suggest looking at the Medical School Anki Reddit page. People are constantly creating more Anki decks and sharing them for free.
There are more and more Anki decks coming out every year, so you are sure to find decks that suit your needs.
Why Are Some of The Decks on Reddit?
Some of the following decks are found on Reddit. The main reason for this is that it is the biggest Medical School Anki community on the planet and is where students from around the world get together and have great banter about Anki.
Because of this incredible community, some people like to share the decks they have worked on. This results in many of the medical school decks being made available on the subreddit.
AnKing Step 1 & 2
This deck is the KING of all medical school decks. It is the perfect deck if you are studying for the USMLE but can also be used by students around the world.
You have probably heard of the AnKing.
He has made a name for himself among medical students worldwide for providing excellent Anki-related content on his YouTube channel.
He also has created a fantastic Anki deck for medical students. It is one of the few decks that I use myself.
I don’t personally like the style of the AnKing decks
For that reason, I made a video that goes into how to reset the AnKing card style back to default.
It’s much easier than you think. Check out the video below.
The AnKing deck is by far the best medical school Anki deck in the world. The number of hours that have gone into making this deck makes it something that nobody can replicate.
Currently, the latest version is Step 1 Version 9 and Step 2 Version 4. Scroll to the bottom of the Reddit post to see whether there are any updates.
Rubyfinals
I am probably biased, but this deck made by yours truly is a true gem amongst medical students.
Just like the AnKing decks were made for US medical students. the Rubyfinals decks are made for UK medical students.
They are mainly clinically focused and they fill a gap in the market when it comes to UK Anki decks.
It has been adapted from the Flashfinals decks which have sadly been discontinued (but you can still access it via the Rubyfinals page).
USUHS
This deck was made in 2017 by a USUHS student and still gets reviews to this day.
This deck was made by a Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USUHS) student. This is a university located in Washington, Maryland.
The deck does contain some university-specific cards; however, it does have general First Aid and Pathoma cards.
This is a large deck with over 3000 images.
However, the reviews are good, with it sitting at 40 thumbs up and zero thumbs down on AnkiWeb, the most recent being in March 2021.
Dope Anatomy
This anatomy deck is great for learning the general structures of the body.
This is an excellent deck for learning anatomy.
It has been fully tagged by Reddit user u/hamsterjames and can be found here.
Below is the tagging system that has been used. It is thoroughly organised by organs which is exactly what you want when learning anatomy.
The formatting of the deck is slightly odd. As you can see below, the background has been made dark with the text colour and font changed too. However, I am sure some will love this style.
You can also find a Ranatomy deck on the same Reddit post.
This is based on the original Dope Anatomy deck, which can be found here.
Netter Better
An alternative anatomy deck that has a slightly different style to Dope Anatomy’s.
This deck is another anatomy deck based on Netter’s Atlas 7th edition and has 21,000+ image occlusion flashcards.
You can find the deck here.
As the author states, this is a huge deck. It isn’t meant for those who want a quick anatomy summary. It’s for people that want to delve deep into the land of muscle names and insertions.
SALT Deck
This deck is for people that want to learn pathology and have a subscription with Sketchy.
There are many SALT decks on the interwebs, but this one by Conaanaa is a solid enough choice.
This is great for people who are using Sketchy to learn pathology but can be used by anyone.
Bonus Decks
Here are some bonus decks that you can do some research on for yourself.
If you haven’t gotten enough pre-made decks from the above decks, here are some more incredible decks that you should think about getting:
- DIP Deck: A Divine Intervention Podcasts Anki Deck for the Wards – This deck is based on the Divine Intervention Podcast and contains over 10,000 cards.
- AnatoKing v1 [King of Anatomy Decks] – A rival of the AnKing deck, this deck claims to be the “King” of anatomy decks with its 4773 cards.
- The COVID ICU Deck V5.2 – This deck is for those wanting to go deep into the realm of ICU, and specifically COVID ICU. It is based on Marino’s ICU book and has 1572 cards.
- Marigoldie’s M4 Emergency Medicine Deck (EM Secrets) – These 1372 cards are perfect for those who want to learn more about emergency medicine.
- Cyan: A new Anki deck based on the Essential Examination “Blue Book” – This deck is made for UK medical students who want to prepare for their OSCE’s. There are 1395 cards.
- Canki: A new Anki deck based on Canada Q Bank and the MCC Practice Exams – This is for Canadian students preparing for the MCCQE Part 1 (similar to the USMLE Step 2 CK). Approximately 1500 cards.
Tips on Using These Decks
Here are some extra tips that you will find useful if nothing else in this article satisfied you.
Don’t Rely 100% on the Information in the Decks
Although most of the information is likely accurate, you can’t be entirely sure. Mistakes are always going to occur when someone is making thousands of flashcards.
Therefore, mixing and matching with other decks might be good to ensure there aren’t any contradictions.
You don’t need to be too cautious, though. If you ever find that you learned something wrong from a deck, then you can simply re-learn it in the future. You won’t have to do this for many cards, so it’s worth it to have blind faith and trust the deck creator.
Don’t Download Every Deck
While it might be tempting to download half the decks that I have listed here, it is best if you stick to a couple of your favourite decks.
Each deck contains a vast number of cards and so downloading any more than 3 is going to overwhelm you.
Get the Right Add-ons
For a lot of these decks, you probably don’t need any particular add-on.
Besides the image occlusion add-on, you can get away with using vanilla Anki. However, I would suggest that you at least research and find some add-ons that can complement how you work in Anki.
If you aren’t sure where to start, then take a look at my list of 10 Anki add-ons for medical students.
Combine Anki With Question Banks
Just using Anki on its own isn’t going to be enough. You need to combine it with other resources like question banks to make it worthwhile.
Quesmed is a good place to start if you aren’t sure where to start. I have a review about them which you can check out here.
Read My Article About Anki Tips and Tricks
This article will give you 10 useful Anki tips and tricks that will set you up nicely for the future.
If you enjoyed this article, please share it with your friends and colleagues. It takes a lot of effort to make these, and as a busy medical student, I can use all the help I can get to make this venture worthwhile.
