Struggling to stay on top of endless medical school information? There’s an app for that. As more medical students enhance their classroom lectures with virtual learning, students are turning to digital learning apps to absorb and retain the vast amount of complex medical information needed to pass their licensure exams. There is an increasing reliance on
Medscape Medical News asked several medical students about online preparation for the United States Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE) Step 1 and Step 2 exams. Students use a combination of digital learning aids such as study banks, animated videos, and flashcard databases.
Here are some of the most popular learning tools.
$319 for 30 days of access. $439 for 90 days of access with one self-assessment. 180 days of access with 2 self-assessments is $479. $559/year for 3 self-assessments
UWorld is the go-to learning app for students Medscape Medical News We consulted. “This is one of my essential resources,” says Jaylee Ramos-Aponte, a third-year student at the University of New England College of Osteopathic Medicine in Biddeford, Maine.
Digital question bank provides thousands of practice questions to help students prepare for all major medical licensure exams. For example, Step 1 Prep includes over 3,600 questions based on clinical scenarios of exam-level difficulty or higher.
Questions on basic sciences such as biochemistry, genetics, and microbiology are combined with detailed visual explanations organized to track student performance by subject and body system. Students can create custom exams and flashcards from practice questions. UWorld also tracks student progress.
Ramos-Aponte said UWorld allows her to apply the information she learns to clinical practice. The answer choices are tailored to common misconceptions, she added. “If I get an answer wrong, they dig deeper into why I got it wrong and when I got it wrong. It helps me learn from my mistakes.” I also value illustrated and labeled diagrams, tables, and charts to help me visualize.
$14.99/month or $129/year
AMBOSS, another question bank, has compiled over 25,000 textbooks, medical journals, guidelines, and articles. This digital platform includes over 10,000 radiology images, videos, illustrations, and flowcharts, as well as interactive medical images and overlays. Step 1 has over 2700 practice questions and Step 2 and Shelf have over 3900 practice questions, with explanations linked to the library. More than 1,200 articles can also be used to learn more about specific topics.
Maggie Hurley, a fifth-year student at the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine in Philadelphia, considers AMBOSS to be a medical student’s encyclopedia. She said she only used AMBOSS for a month or two before moving on to step two “to get more questions in a very short period of time.”
Ramos-Aponte said he has been using AMBOSS frequently during clinical practice this year. “When you’re in the hospital and there’s a patient who might have some sort of disease and you need to investigate.” AMBOSS focuses on key clinical features and diagnostic modalities, differential medications and complications, she said. “I might go to the patient’s room, but I have to update the medication right away.” She can contact AMBOSS for a quick overview.
6-month plan: $50 per month, initial payment of $300. 12-month plan for $33 per month ($400 initial payment)
Sketchy uses animated videos and visual learning cards to teach over 1,300 preclinical and clinical lessons. Over 3000 interactive review cards with symbol visuals and reviews. Additionally, over 6,300 quiz questions are a mix of quick recall, scenario-based, and vignette-style questions.
Ms Hurley said the cartoon videos contain memory hooks, signals, symbols and objects related to medical concepts to help learn subjects such as microbiology and pharmacy.
“It’s an interesting way to learn.” If you have to learn about side effects in a drug class, the video creates a picture with a story. “It’s a great visual tool for people who are visual learners or who can learn visually,” Hurley said. Medscape Medical News.
Dhruv Puri, a fourth-year student at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, likes Sketchy’s “mind palace” method of combining images and medical concepts. “For example, having an image in your head can help you try to remember medicines that treat heart disease. It’s a very effective memory trigger.”
$89 per month or $249 per year per product
Boards & Beyond offers an on-demand video library and question bank to help students understand concepts rather than just memorize them.
If you’re preparing for Step 1, Boards & Beyond will supplement your preclinical coursework. Rather than teaching you buzzwords and mnemonics, we strengthen your basic and clinical science knowledge with 440+ videos and 2,300+ USMLE-style questions.
In Steps 2 and 3 Clinical, Boards & Beyond builds on your preclinical foundation with lessons on clinical topics, including in-depth diagnostic and treatment discussions. Over 260 videos and over 1,300 USMLE-style questions are available to students. Preclinical and clinical products include progress tracking, custom quizzes, playlists, and slide PDFs.
Hurley likes the way Boards & Beyond organizes lectures for first- and second-year courses such as immunology, biochemistry, microbiology, physiology, anatomy, pathology, and body systems.
You can further practice lessons that are taught in a different way than in the classroom. “I am glad that I was able to solidify my preclinical knowledge.”
1 month free trial, $100/year
Pathoma focuses on pathology with 35 hours of online videos highlighting key concepts and highly tested material. These videos are combined with a 218-page color textbook on the fundamentals of pathology, covering 19 chapters and 300 frequently tested color images. This program provides a review of USMLE Step 1 and medical courses that integrate important concepts from related fields of pathology.
Hurley realized that Patoma would be useful in his pathology studies, just before his board exams on the subject. She said Pathoma is useful for students who want to review illnesses and medical conditions one system at a time. For example, blood system research may include leukemia, lymphoma, and anemia, and cardiac system research may include heart failure.
“I like that it’s lecture-based. It comes with a book that you can annotate on. You can find chapters and create supplements. I like that it’s auditory and tactile. It’s helpful to have a textbook as a resource.”
Puri is grateful that the doctor created Patoma. “The videos are all high-yield, need-to-know information in Pathology. It doesn’t take long to complete them all. Knowing everything about Pathoma will give you a strong foundation for the USMLE. [Step] 1.”
You can download it for free. $24.99 for mobile app
Anki flashcards are spaced and repeated to strengthen comprehension and increase long-term retention and recall. Students create personalized flashcards about diseases, medications, anatomy and physiology, and clinical medicine.
This app helps students memorize medical facts such as drug names, anatomical structures, medical abbreviations, disease criteria, and treatment protocols. Students can explore differential diagnosis and clinical reasoning scenarios, patient presentations, common symptoms, diagnostic workup, and management strategies.
Using this platform, students can review medical images such as physical examination findings, X-rays, CT scans, and histopathology slides to identify relevant anatomical structures and pathology, and interpret medical images to make diagnoses. You can do it.
Students can review their flashcards to demonstrate their retention. Anki schedules cards for review based on performance, focusing on weaknesses.
“It has an incredibly effective algorithm that targets what you know and what you’re missing,” Puri said.
Anki provides subject reviews, self-tests, supplementary lectures, and textbook materials. Students can also embed audio clips, images, videos, and links to online resources and scientific markup.
$62 per self-examination
NBME, which develops and administers medical school exams, offers practice questions and question banks. Self-assessment helps students see how well they would score if they took the exam at that time. In other words, you can assess your preparation and practice for the USMLE exam or NBME subject exam.
Puri believes it is helpful to “practice questions written by the person who created the exam.”
Students can assess whether they are ready to take the test by familiarizing themselves with NBME-style questions and knowing their chances of passing within a week.
The rating shows the percentage of content mastered throughout the exam and in the content areas. Diagnostic feedback highlights students’ areas of strength and weakness, and their answers help reinforce their knowledge, so they can learn more effectively.
Step 1 and Step 2 assessments each contain 200 multiple-choice questions. The standard-paced option mimics a live testing environment and includes four sections of 50 questions, each of which takes 1 hour and 15 minutes to complete. The self-paced option allows students to complete each section in up to five hours.
AMA also provides USMLE Step 1 and Step 2 practice questions and case studies to help students prepare for the test. For more information, please visit: AMA Medical Student Exam Preparation Resources.
Loni Robbins is a freelance journalist and former editor of Medscape Medical News Business of Medicine. She is also a freelance health reporter for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Her work has appeared in WebMD, Huffington Post, Forbes, New York Daily News, BioPharma Dive, MNN, Adweek, Healthline, and more. She is also the author of multiple award-winning books. Hands of Gold: One man’s quest to find a silver lining in misery.
