I'd argue that Anki is the best way to study Anatomy. Especially for the practical exam.
Anki is a spaced repetition flashcard program. It means that you see cards just before you're about to forget them. Honestly, it's one of the best ways to learn anatomy, histology and other subjects.
Making cards
A common beginner mistake is making cards that are too long or too vague.
Bad card: “Explain the brachial plexus”
Better cards:
- “Which spinal nerves form the brachial plexus?”
- “Which cord gives rise to the radial nerve?”
- “What muscle is innervated by the musculocutaneous nerve?”
So, no open questions.
Anki seems tough to set up at first, but once you download your first add-on, it will start making sense.
What is the best Anki add-on?
There is a lot of arguments over this, but I know the right answer: Image occlusion enhanced.
This add-on cuts your anatomy studying in half. All you need to do is cover up the names you want to learn, and it will automatically ask them of you with spaced repetition.
This add-on can be downloaded from here.
If you need a tutorial, watch this. (or any other tutorial on youtube)
Word fill (Cloze)
Another card type is word fill, done by the card type Cloze.
With this card type, you can make cards like the following:
You can create the questions using AI by uploading your material, and asking it to generate questions in the Cloze format.
The format looks like this (above).
I use Anki for:
- Anatomy
- Histology
- Biochemistry
- Physiology
So, basically for everything that matters.
Anatomy practical colloquium
In the anatomy practical classes, take a picture of a model and label it on your phone or laptop like this:
Then import that image to Anki with the Image Occlusion Enhanced add-on downloaded, and cover the names of the structures. Boom. You got yourself an Anki deck.
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