Anatomy Anki Deck

Reading this article might have piqued your interest about Anki’s potential. The pile of anatomy knowledge taunting you might force you to desperately grab onto the first program that can offer a glimmer of hope. Although Anki is indeed an excellent learning method for anatomy, it does have an immense drawback – it requires a big time investment. Creating decks upon decks with hundreds of new flashcards every day and week can crumble the patience of the most resilient person. Add to that just the word “anatomy” and you might give up using Anki faster than you can say the name itself.

Flashcards made from the textbook “Anatomy and Physiology: The Unity of Form and Function (Ninth Edition)” by Kenneth S. Saladin covering chapters 1-12 and 26 and would likely be very helpful for any beginner-level anatomy and physiology course

Exhaustive and thorough card set for learning and memorizing almost all concepts, facts, figures, and more from the textbook and the accompanying McGraw Hill Connect website
The deck is divided into subdecks that correspond to the chapters in the book
Each subdeck starts with cards that cover the material presented in each chapter (created in the same order) and concludes with cards that cover the review questions in the Study Guide
Supplemental material presented in the accompanying website, if available, is presented after the cards that cover the material presented in each chapter either before or after the cards that cover the review questions in the Study Guide
To the best of my ability, I have verified that all of the cards are clear, concise, and accurate – however, if you find any errata, please notify me via the Anki Decks website (https://ankidecks.com) so that I may make corrections ASAP

How To Use This Deck

If I may, first let me share a word of advice: any Anatomy and Physiology course, even a beginner course such as one using this textbook, will be very demanding and require lots of effort on a daily basis
- By creating and sharing this deck, I hope to make learning Anatomy and Physiology easier even if by just a little bit
Here is how I would approach studying for Anatomy and Physiology with this Anki deck and any beginner Anatomy and Physiology textbook:
1. Back up this Anki deck to a safe location immediately after downloading
2. Open the original copy of this Anki deck in Anki on your PC
3. Look at the material your class will be covering for Test 1
  1. For me, Test 1 covered Chapters 1, 1.5, and 2
  1. Note that moving the cards back from your new deck to the corresponding subdecks will be significantly more difficult
  2. If you need to the cards back in their original subdecks, I would recommend making and opening another copy of the backup
  3. To move the Cards, click the subdeck on the main Anki screen, click Browse just above the deck title, highlight all of the cards you want to move, alternate-click one of the highlighted cards, click Cards on the pop-up menu, click Change Deck on the submenu, and click to highlight your new deck on the dialog that appears and then click Move Cards
  1. To find this number, click to highlight your new deck in the left pane of the Browse window and look at the top left of the window: the total number of cards in your new deck should appear to the right of the word “Browse”
  1. This may or may not include Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays
  2. Note that you will have to study more each day for every resting day And that you will have more cards to review the day after your resting days
  1. For example, if you have 18 working days and 1,800 cards, you will have to learn a minimum of 100 cards each day
  2. Note that this may seem like a lot – and many days I felt it was – but I am sure you will find quite often that it is less that it appears
  3. Create a new preset for this number
  4. Make sure your new deck is open on the main Anki screen, click Options, click the down-arrow to the right of the Save button, click Add Preset, type a name for the new preset e.g. Focus, and click OK on the Add Preset dialog, type this number in the text box to the right of “New cards/day”, change the number in the text box to the right of “Maximum reviews/day” according to the warning message that appears, and click Save
  1. Then start learning the cards either on your PC or a mobile device (I mostly used my smartphone to learn new cards and my PC to review old cards)
  Tips
  - I would recommend learning new cards before reviewing old cards, as I tried reviewing old cards first for a couple of days initially but found I was exhausted by the time the new cards appeared
    - On the other hand, I often found reviewing old cards to be easy after learning new cards
    - To learn new cards first, click Tools on the toolbar of the main Anki screen, click Preferences, click Scheduling, and select “Show new cards before reviews” from the drop-down menu
    - For instance, you may suddenly be presented with new cards that you know to be from a different chapter
    - To be safe, before starting any new Anki deck, I recommend making sure that Anki presents new cards in the order added
    - (I always do this in Anki for my smartphone, so this is my guess for how to perform the corresponding procedure in Anki for my PC)
    - To make sure Anki presents new cards in the order added on PC, make sure your new deck is open on the main Anki screen, click Options at the bottom, click “Random” in the drop-down menu under Insertion order, click Save, close the Options dialog, click Options at the bottom again, click “Sequential (oldest cards first)” in the drop-down menu under Insertion order, click Save, and close the Options dialog
    - To make sure Anki presents new cards in the order added on a smartphone, make sure you are looking at a card from your deck on Anki mobile, tap the three dots in the upper right, tap “Deck options” on the pop-up menu, tap “New cards”, tap “New cards in order added” under Order, tap “New cards in random order”, tap the back arrow or swipe right to return to your card, tap the three dots in the upper right again, tap “Deck options” on the pop-up menu, tap “New cards”, tap “New cards in random order” under Order, tap “New cards in order added”, and tap the back arrow or swipe right to return to your card
    If my Anki deck has helped you, please help me pay for college!
    
    How to learn anatomy with Anki
    
    Almost everyone has heard this saying at least once in his or her life, that “repetition is the mother of learning”. A lot of people think that success and knowledge comes from receiving an intangible gift or blessing at birth, which gives some an advantage over anyone else. There is no denying that an incredible amount of geniuses, such as Albert Einstein or Leonardo Da Vinci, did achieve great things in the past and they were one of a kind. However, it was also Einstein who said “genius is 1% talent and 99% hard work…”
    
    Learning and mastering any type of knowledge requires time, patience and devotion, irrespective of what it is you are trying to learn. It can be anything from a new language to science or anatomy. Once you understand this aspect, you can start chiseling and polishing your studying in a different way than before, removing all the inesthetic bumps and cracks. You can start spacing out your repetitions according to how well you actively remember the desired knowledge.
    
    You might be confused and lost about how to learn anatomy efficiently. The requirement to learn such a massive amount of information in record time can drown anyone. However, there is a little program floating within the interweb, which can clear the path towards your goals. This article will introduce you to Anki’s magic.
    1. What is Anki?
    2. Why use Anki?
    3. Learning anatomy
    4. Golden rules for flashcards
    5. Is Anki the cream of the crop?
    6. Sources
    What is Anki?
    
    Anki is a program, which makes remembering discrete facts easy through the use of flashcards. It is based on two concepts: active recall and spaced repetition. Active recall involves trying to remember a piece of information directly from memory without any hints. In other words, active recall means testing. Spaced repetition revolves around reviewing a piece of information multiple times, but there is a catch. Reviewing with Anki does not happen arbitrarily, but it rather depends on how well the information was recalled the previous times. Therefore, while the active recall is the test, the spaced repetition is the teacher.
    
    If you thought learning anatomy was challenging, imagine trying to also keep track of the accuracy of your recall, then planning the review times, reviewing the information and doing the same steps the following day. It would be a nightmare! Luckily, Anki’s algorithm is extremely intelligent and calculates this automatically. The only aspect this magician needs from you, its audience, are the claps provided through the simple touch of a button, telling him if/how well you remembered a piece of information. The possible options are:
    
    Again – incorrectly recalled or forgotten
    
    Hard – correct but it was difficult to remember
    
    Good – correctly remembered without taking too long
    
    Easy – correctly remembered in a fraction of a time
    
    The easier the recall, the lengthier the time will be until you see that particular card again and vice-versa.
    
    Why use Anki?
    
    “Jimmy” Connors, one of the greatest players to ever set foot on a tennis court, said “Use it or lose it”. The human brain follows this policy to a T. In order to remember any piece of information for a long period of time you need to see it again and review it, otherwise you will forget it. In fact, forgetting starts at an alarming rate, the moment you finish learning. Therefore, the more you use the brain to test yourself about how well you know a piece of information, the more consolidated it becomes.
    
    Although all of this is perfectly true, I would like to change Connors saying into “Use it well or lose it”. There is no denying that “well” refers to the active recall part. However, it also refers to the spaced repetition. Daily studying will result in flashcards piling up very rapidly and reviewing all of them each day is not practical. In order to “use it well”, you need to remind yourself only of the challenging information rather than everything day after day. This would increase efficiency and save time in the long run. After all, medicine and anatomy is a marathon so you will be running for many years.
    
    In addition to providing a successful review strategy, Anki offers users several additional advantages:
    Learning anatomy
    
    When you strip away Anki of its sparkly robe and look at the skeleton, it is ultimately a memorization program. Therefore, it is only natural to be well suited for studying anatomy – a factual subject with a high volume of information.
    
    Step 1: Read the required information. Kenhub would prove an excellent anatomy resource at this point, with its clearly written articles and professional video tutorials. You need to realize that Anki is not a dirt track but rather a paved and straight road. It will get you to your destination more efficiently and faster in the long run rather than offering you instant results but leave you with knowledge gaps and unconsolidated material. Effort is still required when using this program.
    
    Step 2: Take a note of any important facts or concepts that need to be memorized and convert them into flashcards. Anki offers a lot of options, from simple to advanced. You can make standard, double-sided ones or fill in the blanks. You can write an anatomical term on the front and its explanation or a fact about it on the back of the card. For example, you can write “Choracobrachialis muscle innervation” on the front and “Musculocutaneous nerve” on the back. Alternatively, you can convert a concept into a question or insert a picture with blank labels on the front and the same one, but labeled, on the back of the card. Just use your imagination because the possibilities are endless!
    
    Step 3: Immediately review your flashcards after you have finished making them. This is essential for knowledge retention and to minimize forgetting. Anki will schedule each card in the future based on how well you recall it.
    
    Step 4: This is important – Repeat those steps daily to prevent unnecessary cards from piling up. Tackling hundreds of unreviewed cards in one go is an ugly sight that will just set you back and make it more challenging to catch up. Remember, you are running a marathon and not sprinting a race.
    
    Need an extra hand? Find out how to effectively structure your studies using our Human Anatomy Study Guide.
    
    Golden rules for flashcards
    
    It is very easy to get ahead of yourself and create very complex flashcards with long answers and confusing questions. Anatomy is already confusing so there is no need to create a mountain out of a molehill.
    
    Below are some golden rules to help you create good, clear and useful study cards for anatomy:
    - Keep it simple – make discrete cards with one question or one fact/answer
    - Make questions unambiguous
    - Try formulating “Why?” questions
    - Create connections between different cards
    - Avoid lists – if indispensible, keep them under five items
    - Enhance your cards with media
    Is Anki the cream of the crop?
    
    Reading this article might have piqued your interest about Anki’s potential. The pile of anatomy knowledge taunting you might force you to desperately grab onto the first program that can offer a glimmer of hope. Although Anki is indeed an excellent learning method for anatomy, it does have an immense drawback – it requires a big time investment. Creating decks upon decks with hundreds of new flashcards every day and week can crumble the patience of the most resilient person. Add to that just the word “anatomy” and you might give up using Anki faster than you can say the name itself.
    
    Fortunately, alternative learning methods do exist, one being the quizzes offered by Kenhub. The quiz database offers similar, although not identical advantages to Anki. However, what makes it specifically different from Anki are the prepared flashcards, which save an incredible amount of time. The quizzes are very well organized according to specific topics and each one has three possible levels of difficulty.
    
    You don’t even have to worry about enhancing any flashcard since a lot of them have images associated with them. Users are also capable of grasping the knowledge very deeply since quizzes some times ask for the same information but in a completely different way, aiding understanding over pure rote learning. On top of that, they also use space repetition techniques and active recall, which is what you are really looking for to enhance your anatomy learning.
    
    As you can see, there is more than one way to skin a cat. Despite some drawbacks, Anki does have incredible potential to aid anatomy studies. Similar to a devoted teacher, this program will guide and test you, challenge you yet reward you. It will help you whenever the need arises, guiding you towards the light at the end of the tunnel and showing you that anatomy can definitely be tackled.
    
    Sources
    - Augustin, M., How to Learn Effectively in Medical School: Test Yourself, Learn Actively, and Repeat in Intervals. The Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine, 2014. 87(2): p. 207-212.
    - Murre, J.M. and J. Dros, Replication and Analysis of Ebbinghaus’ Forgetting Curve. PLoS One, 2015. 10(7): p. e0120644.
    - Anki User Manual.
    © Unless stated otherwise, all content, including illustrations are exclusive property of Kenhub GmbH, and are protected by German and international copyright laws. All rights reserved.
    
    Register now and grab your free ultimate anatomy study guide!

Anatomy Anki Deck