Anki refers to a free, flashcard-based spaced repetition software available at ankisrs.net. I take just about all of my notes for medical school using Anki. The basic idea is that the spaced repetition allows you to transfer knowledge to long-term memory in the most efficient way possible.*
My Anki is broken into three parent decks: Medicine, Languages, and Memory Sports, each with a few subdecks (e.g. Pathology, Chinese). I use hierarchical tags for everything (e.g. Med::Path::Block5::endocrine-pathology::adrenal-cortex::cushing-syndrome). This gives me a way to outline the material. For the cards themselves, I almost exclusively use a modified "Basic" format. Four fields: Front (the question), Back (the answer), Big Picture (additional notes to help strengthen conceptual understanding and see the larger picture), and Mnemonic (usually with a description of images in a memory palace).
I don't generally reference palaces or anything other than the actual material in the first three fields. In my Mnemonic field, I'll write something like this: [locus] IMAGE1 hits IMAGE2. For instance, "[railing] EINSTEIN slides into APPLE." I capitalize things that actually correspond to information, sometimes writing in the association if it's not clear; for instance, "[railing] EINSTEIN=epstein-barr-virus knocks over ROTTEN egg." I keep the language as concise as possible. I used to write long descriptions of my stories, but I found that doing so took too much time and was largely irrelevant after I'd spent some time with the material. Now, my descriptions often look as simple as "[locus] IMAGE." I also tend to fill the Mnemonic field with all mnemonics relating to the relevant subtopic. For example, each of the x cards about Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) will contain all mnemonics relating to EBV.
Although it doesn't always happen, I do my best to complete all high-yield review cards each day, even those from older test blocks.
Here are a few example screenshots:
*For a more general discussion of the benefits of Anki, see Never Forget What You Learn: 4 Reasons You Should Be Using Anki in Medical School.
Comments (4)
Hi Alex, I really wish I knew about this earlier - I'm going to be a doctor next year (from Aus) and I keep forgetting what I learned! I just want to be a good doctor, and I have been implementing Anki and 'designing' memory palaces for the last few weeks. I have encountered a problem I know many other medical students also face, and was hoping for your input.
Much of medicine include memorizing lists, and an Anki card I've made for example is
----------------------------------------------
"Causes of liver cirrhosis:
1) {{c1::ETOH}}
2) {{c1::Hep B / C}}
3) {{c1::Drugs}}
4) {{c1::AI hepatitis}}
5) {{c1::1° biliary cirrhosis, 2° biliary cirrhosis}}
6) {{c1::Metabolic ∆ (haemachromatosis, Wilsons's)}}
7) {{c1::Hep congestion 2° to R side heart failure/constrictive pericarditis}}
8) {{c1::↓ α1-Antitrypsin (AAT)}}
9) {{c1::Hepatic venoocclusive disease}}
10) {{c1::NASH (nonalcoholic steatohepatitis)}}"
I've tried making memory palaces for that with an entire story, but it piles up when you think about memorizing Risk factors for cirrhosis, Symptoms (Sx) of cirrhosis, etc.
Also, I have a card on the Sx of cirrhosis (which includes 'ascites'), and then another card on the Sx of ascities (shifting dullness, etc), which makes my memory palace for lists very hard as it is a list within a list.
----------------------------------------------
For reference:
Sx chronic liver disease:
1) {{c4::Ascites}}
2) {{c4::Varices}}
3) {{c4::Gynecomastia, testicular atrophy}}
4) {{c4::Palmar erythema, spider angiomas}}
5) {{c4::Hemorrhoids}}
6) {{c4::Caput medusa}}
Sx ascites:
1) {{c6::abdominal distention}}
2) {{c6::shifting dullness}}
3) {{c6::fluid wave}}
Do you have any tips that can help? This would also be particularly useful in pharmacology when you list side effect of drugs.
(A consultant recently asked me the side effects of amiodarone), and after I listed the main ones he began to tell me all the other ones I also missed which may be important.)
Many thanks! I really look forward to hearing from you
CL
Hi CL, thanks for your question. I'll briefly explain how I actually covered this material myself, which will hopefully clarify some things. I learned liver pathology from Pathoma. I only set about putting together a palace once I'd finished the videos about cirrhosis. So, I ended up picking a particular restaurant to encode everything. Knowing that each disease had myriad details to know, I set aside a unique "area" for each one (eg, waitress stand for EtOH, a nearby table for NASH, a booth for hemochromatosis, the bar for Wilson's, etc). Then I proceeded to add in images as necessary for details about those individual diseases. Because everything is spread out this way, there's no congestion. I did end up making a few images for the signs and symptoms of cirrhosis, which I placed outside the restaurant. I would not encode something like the ascites sx you mentioned, being that they're smaller details that can be intuited (I generally do not encode things I find intuitive; if you haven't read our "top tips" article yet, I'd strongly recommend it: mullenmemory.com/memory-palace/do-memory-palaces-hinder-learning)
There are a ton of amiodarone side effects. I've got a whole hotel lobby for those... :)
Best of luck,
Alex
Very interesting and useful post Alex!
I am about to make a giant deck from a dermatology book and I was wondering how to arrange my tags... I thought of tag1 (chapter), tag 2 (disease), tag 3 (epidemiology/dx/treatment...) as independent tags. Why do you use hierarchical tags with double colons instead of separate tags? Also any other tips on encoding a book in Anki/mind palace are very welcomed!
Thank you in advance
AGT
Hi AGT, that sounds good, although it may be overkill to do tag 3. It may just get annoying having to adjust the tags so often. Usually I'm just using the tags to search for a particular disease, so stopping at tag 2 is enough for me. The cards will also appear more cleanly grouped in the browser that way.
I use the double colons only because it keeps things ordered logically (ie. topic::chapter::disease, etc). But it doesn't matter much, of course. When I search (eg. for keratoacanthoma), I always use asterisks (eg. tag:*keratoac*). That will search through any tags and find the right thing. Hope that's helpful. I've been meaning to get around to writing/posting more, so keep an eye out for more tips. All the best!