Any flashcard makers?

[GoodmanBrown]

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If so, how do you keep up? I've always been a "distiller" of information, making flashcards and summaries of information and then studying off of those items.

Now I can't keep up. I end up making 200 flashcards for 3 weeks of material and only look at them once. I'm in microbiology right now and it's worse than ever. I've spent about 3 days working on bacteria, and we've already moved past bacteria to viruses, fungi, and parasites...

Anyone having success with flashcards? If not, where did you go from there?

 

[Residual]

The act of making the flashcards probably does as much or more for your memory of the material as using them would, per minute spent. I wouldn't consider it time wasted, even if it cuts into the time you can actually use them.

That said, if you can't seem to make them fast enough, you may be able to speed up the process by lowering the amount of information you put on the cards---try using just a few key words that will remind you of other important details, rather than actually writing those details down.

 

[shiftingmirage]

You can buy flashcards. For micro, I use MicroCards. If extra info is in the class notes, I just add it. The microcards even have a sample case on the front.
And I know all med students are broke - but don't get frugal when it comes to study supplies. If 40$ for manufactured cards maintains (some) your sanity, then buy them.

 

[exptherainbow]

I make my flashcards on quizlet.com - it's cheaper, I type faster than I can hand-write, and they have some neat test modes to make going back through them a little more entertaining.

Also, purchased flashcards are useful but I agree with what Residual said about the act of making flashcards being perhaps better than using ones made by someone else.

Also, if you search sites like Quizlet there are a lot of flashcards other medical students have made that could save you time.

 

[LRAccord624]

I borrowed the Micro flashcards from an MS2 and quickly discovered that I needed to make my own in order for them to be effective. I use iflipr.com, and I sync all my cards with my iPhone. Used the same program for biochem and it has worked pretty well.

I usually stream all my lectures, but micro lectures just consisted of someone regurgitating the syllabus, so now I just make my flashcards straight from the syllabus and don't bother listening to the lecture. It takes about 1.5 hours for each one hour lecture.

 

[Gabby]

I really struggled with flashcards first year. It was very hard at first because I spent the majority of my time making them. But now, I make them and run through them with no problem, so long as I keep up with the material. I just have to be careful to not make a flashcard for every single thing or else I'll have 500 flashcards and no time to learn them.

OP, I wasted my time with flashcards for Micro, but that was because of how my teacher tested. My teacher was big on clinical scenarios. So, we'd have a lecture with, say, 30 organisms that we studied. The test questions would be primarily clinical scenarios that expected us to differentiate between them ("Mrs. Clapper presents with the following symptoms..." you know it's a UTI based on symptoms, so you narrow the choices down to the two bugs that you know cause UTIs and eliminate the others, and then it gives you one or two other clues to differentiate between the two bugs).

So what I ended up doing instead was making charts. My UTI chart had every bug we studied that was a common cause of UTIs. Then next to each bug, I put specific distinguishing characteristics unique or relevant to that bug. I got better at "catch phrases" when I could see the bugs side by side and compare, as opposed to memorizing each and every one on a flashcard.

The morning before the exam, I'd glance at my charts again (which only took about 20 minutes since I already knew them) and during the exam, I could often even visualize which bug was on which chart. It worked out a lot better for me.

 

[21CentSouldier]

I tend to use iFlipr for my itouch, but I don't necessarily use it for everything. It's essentially for things that are straight up memorization like the HLA stuff and cancer markers, etc...

Typing is just a lot faster and less strainful on my hand. On top of that I can add whatever images I'd like, granted on the itouch I'm not sure how to resize the pics. However, this makes it a lot easier for me in the long run because it helps me out as I can carry it anywhere and if I'm taking a crap or flying or sitting and waiting for something, I can go over certain things to refresh my mind.

 

[Fleur de Me]

I make my flashcards on quizlet.com - it's cheaper, I type faster than I can hand-write, and they have some neat test modes to make going back through them a little more entertaining.

Also, purchased flashcards are useful but I agree with what Residual said about the act of making flashcards being perhaps better than using ones made by someone else.

Also, if you search sites like Quizlet there are a lot of flashcards other medical students have made that could save you time.

Quizlet is the most awesome thing I didn't start using until recently. Wish I'd found it earlier!

I also import quizlet cards into my flashcard program on my iPad/iPhone- it is the greatest thing to happen to me. And the environment now that I'm not hoarding 1000s of cards that I mostly never look at ever again after the exam.

Hoping my quizlet database will become a USMLE database eventually.

BIG fan. Quizlet. I even paid the $10 to have unlimited pictures so I drop **** right from lecture slides into my index cards. So worth it.

 

[welcometomedsch]

I rock the notecards and the whiteboard.

The process of making them is active learning.

Going to check out the iphone stuff. Sounds neat.

 

[soup12]

I use flashcards deluxe, it's in the apple app store. You can make all your notecards in excel and also include categories. It used to be 3 sided notecards, which was really useful, but now it might be up to 5 sided notecards. You swipe on your iphone/ipod touch in a certain direction to rate how well you knew the information (Wrong, I kind of know, know really well).

Here's the website: http://orangeorapple.com/Flashcards/Default.aspx

 

[mdeast]

Try out Anki. Our neuro professors recommended it for it's memory techniques.

I also use Mental Case for iPad. It's expensive (and I got the desktop version too, which sinks), but worth it.

 

[Led Zep]

Well I don't know how relevant this is, but my gf is in medical school (hopefully I'll be joining her next year) and she was a notecard maker and had to stop after her first exam. She made the cards for that exam and only got through them once. Now she uses a different method:

She uses colored pens and writes out everything "in her own words" almost as if she had to explain it to someone in an essay form. She switches pen colors everytime there is a new train of thought. After it's all said and done she reviews the written notes as much as she has time for (sometimes only once or twice).

She's currently ranked 14th in her class at a very good school....

 

[OpalOnyx]

Well I don't know how relevant this is, but my gf is in medical school (hopefully I'll be joining her next year) and she was a notecard maker and had to stop after her first exam. She made the cards for that exam and only got through them once. Now she uses a different method:

She uses colored pens and writes out everything "in her own words" almost as if she had to explain it to someone in an essay form. She switches pen colors everytime there is a new train of thought. After it's all said and done she reviews the written notes as much as she has time for (sometimes only once or twice).

She's currently ranked 14th in her class at a very good school....

the train of thought thing is very good point.

 

[Fleur de Me]

I use flashcards deluxe, it's in the apple app store. You can make all your notecards in excel and also include categories. It used to be 3 sided notecards, which was really useful, but now it might be up to 5 sided notecards. You swipe on your iphone/ipod touch in a certain direction to rate how well you knew the information (Wrong, I kind of know, know really well).

Here's the website: http://orangeorapple.com/Flashcards/Default.aspx

this is what i use- my favorite features is that it imports cards from quizlet!

 

[MightyMoose]

Quizlet looks awesome. I will definitely be using this.

 

[NightSwim]

I take notes as flashcards. Works for me.

 

[clinicallabguy]

If so, how do you keep up? I've always been a "distiller" of information, making flashcards and summaries of information and then studying off of those items.

Now I can't keep up. I end up making 200 flashcards for 3 weeks of material and only look at them once. I'm in microbiology right now and it's worse than ever. I've spent about 3 days working on bacteria, and we've already moved past bacteria to viruses, fungi, and parasites...

Anyone having success with flashcards? If not, where did you go from there?

I made flashcards on www.flashcardmachine.com and then got a flashcard app for my ipod touch. I would quickly type up a flashcard when I came to an important point, and then go through them on the bus ride to and from school.

 

[Slaol]

If so, how do you keep up? I've always been a "distiller" of information, making flashcards and summaries of information and then studying off of those items.

Now I can't keep up. I end up making 200 flashcards for 3 weeks of material and only look at them once. I'm in microbiology right now and it's worse than ever. I've spent about 3 days working on bacteria, and we've already moved past bacteria to viruses, fungi, and parasites...

Anyone having success with flashcards? If not, where did you go from there?

I used an open-source program called "jmemorize" when I was in basic science.

Here's some information on the program:

jMemorize - This app features a progress chart to keep you motivated, comes in several languages, and even lets you attach images to each card. jMemorize lets you assign categories to your data and keeps stats on how well you're learning. If you decide to print out your flashcards, simply export your data in XML, CSV, RTF, or PDF format.

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I found this program very helpful - especially for microbiology. It takes just a couple of seconds to make each card (much better than writing them out), and the "quiz" mode puts your cards into stacks of "correct" and "incorrect" (like USMLE World) so that you can go back and review the ones you missed.

 

[Pharmacy Kid]

Anki is great.

 

[mommy2three]

i use a combination of flash card manager on my desktop which was low cost but is awesome.

i also use mnemosyne.
i tried anki but did not find itto be very intuitive or useful.