If you’re new to Anki, figuring out how to actually “do Anki” for USMLE prep can be surprisingly confusing. When I first downloaded the program in medical school, I wasn’t sure where to start. And when I looked for tutorials, many focused on add-ons, custom settings, and advanced features that made Anki feel even more complicated.
Eventually, I developed a much simpler approach. You don’t need to master every Anki feature to start using it effectively. You just need to understand the basic tools and how to work them into your study routine.
That’s what this guide will walk you through. I’ll cover the Anki fundamentals you need to get started, from creating your first flashcards to using them to study medical school material, without getting bogged down in complicated add-ons or heavily customized settings.
Download our free Anatomy Anki deck for MS1s with 4,000+ flashcards. Learn body structures with main, labeled, and quiz cards. Created by the nation's leading USMLE tutor, Dr. Jeanie Gribben.
A bit of background: Anki is a flashcard software where you can create your own cards or download pre-made decks to learn various subjects, from languages to medical school content.
Anki uses spaced repetition, a research-supported method for improving long-term retention by scheduling reviews at increasing intervals based on how well you remember the material.
Spaced repetition is based on the spacing effect, a phenomenon discovered by psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus, which describes how reviewing information at intervals over time can improve retention compared with cramming.
When you review a flashcard, Anki asks you to indicate how well you recalled the information by choosing Again, Hard, Good, or Easy. Your response helps determine when the card will appear again, so material you struggle with is generally reviewed sooner than material you recall easily.
In this way, you are “forced” to actually review specific material that you might not feel confident with instead of letting it sit forgotten in a notebook.
Setting up Anki might seem daunting at first, but it’s actually quite straightforward. Here’s a step-by-step guide to get you started:
Once you have Anki installed, you’re ready to start creating flashcards. This guide focuses on three types: Basic Front-and-Back, Image Occlusion, and Cloze Deletion cards.
Anki offers several types of flashcards, but three are especially useful for medical school:
Below, I’ll walk you through how to create and use each of these card types.
These are the simplest type of flashcards and are great for straightforward question-and-answer formats.
Here’s how to create Basic Front-and-Back cards:
Above is an example of what you can put on a Basic Front-and-Back card:
Once you’ve added a few cards, you can start studying them by clicking "Study Now".
These cards are particularly useful for memorizing diagrams, tables, or any visual information. You can use Anki’s Image Occlusion functionality to quickly create multiple cards from this content, rather than wasting your time rewriting or redrawing it.
Here’s how to create Image Occlusion cards:
Image Occlusion Example:
Cloze deletion cards ask you to recall a missing word or phrase within a larger piece of information. They can be especially useful when you want to memorize terminology, relationships, or key details while keeping some context visible.
For example, instead of creating a Basic card that asks, “What is the primary site of ATP production in a cell?” you could create a Cloze card that reads:
“Most ATP production takes place in the mitochondria.”
You would then select “mitochondria” and create a Cloze deletion. When you review the card, Anki hides that term and asks you to recall what belongs in the blank.
To create a Cloze card:
Once you’ve created your first flashcards, the next step is figuring out how to use Anki alongside your medical school coursework.
You can integrate Anki into your study routine in two practical ways: creating cards from your lecture material and using flashcards to practice recalling information in a question-and-answer format. Both approaches can help reinforce what you’re learning in class and make review more active.
Lecture material is crucial, especially if you go to a school that ranks its students. Here’s how to effectively use Anki to memorize lecture content:
Creating your own test questions is one of the best ways to study the content covered in medical school. Not only can it help you memorize the material, the very act of writing the question also helps you understand the information.
Luckily, Anki makes it easy to create and review practice test questions. Here’s an example Anki card that simulates a test question:
As a bonus, you can also paste any relevant slides from lecture on the back of the card. Before answering the card, take a minute to try to recall the information from these slides (e.g. the mechanisms of action of clopidogrel and aspirin). This will help you build mental connections between topics.
Here’s an example below of how you can make practice question Anki cards from medical school lectures:
Download our free Anatomy Anki deck for MS1s with 4,000+ flashcards. Learn body structures with main, labeled, and quiz cards. Created by the nation's leading USMLE tutor, Dr. Jeanie Gribben.
Med school is hard, but tools like Anki can make the journey way more manageable. The goal of this guide was to provide you with a solid foundation to start using Anki effectively.
That being said, there's always more to learn and ways to optimize your study habits, and we’re here to help you every step of the way.
If you think you need personalized support to succeed in medical school, check out our 1-on-1 medical school tutoring. All MedSchoolCoach tutors are 90th+ percentile USMLE scorers.