4 Best Psychiatry Anki Decks (2021)

Psychiatry is one of the major subjects you’ll take in the clinical years of med school and a field that’s growing in popularity as a specialty.

Studying psychiatry from pre-made Anki decks can be a smart move to help give you an edge.

The digital flashcards in each of the following decks help you memorize high-yield material for the subject.

Contents show

The Best Psychiatry Anki Decks

The 4 decks we’ll be looking at are:

We’ll cover some useful resources for studying psychiatry at the end.

Psychiatry Resident and MS4 Advanced Clinician Deck (best for residency)
Dorian’s M3 Clerkship Psychiatry Deck (most comprehensive)
Psychiatry Clerkship Anki Deck (MTB) (best alternative resource)
Zanki/Anking Psychiatry Anki Deck (most popular)

Each of these decks is formatted and structured differently, suiting those with varied learning styles. They also differ in size, meaning some will be faster to run through than others.

We recommend taking a look at each and checking out the card examples first before downloading.

We’ve also included some helpful psychiatry learning resources at the end of this article too!

Psychiatry Resident and MS4 Advanced Clinician Deck

Deck Type	Clinical Psychiatry/Residency
Cards	635
Card Format	Basic/Cloze
Year of Upload	2020
Required Plugins	N/A
Download size	106 KB
Download link	Psychiatry Resident and MS4 Advanced Clinical Deck

This 635 card deck is designed with Psychiatry Residents and MS4’s in mind, taking the National Neuroscience Curriculum Initiative as its main source.

The deck covers the following topics:

Psychopharmacology
Advanced diagnostic principles
Basic medical and neurological treatment
Neuropsychiatry
Treatment-resistence illness
Basic psychotherapy

And more!

Here’s an example of the cards you’ll find in this deck…

You’ll see there’s no specific tagging or categorization (that can make it difficult to study specific topics) but cards are formatted simply (front/back) and are quick to review.

Download Psychiatry Resident and MS4 Advanced Clinical Deck here

Dorian’s M3 Clerkship Decks

Deck Type	Clinical Psychiatry/Residency
Cards	1133
Card Format	Basic/Cloze
Year of Upload	2018
Required Plugins	N/A
Download size	1 GB
Download link	Dorian’s MS3 Clerkship Deck

Dorian’s M3 Clerkship Decks have an excellent psychiatry subdeck that’s built on existing cards from Zanki.

It uses the following sources:

UWorld Psychiatry questions
Online MedEd (OME)
First Aid for Psychiatry
AMBOSS
Emma Holliday High Yield Psychiatry Lectures
National Board of Medical Examiners (NBME)

Here’s how the Psychiatry subdeck is organized…

Dorian’s cards are short and focused on pattern recognition with a maximum of 2 facts to a card.

The deck is designed for rapid review at its core, reviewing key clinical data.

The mnemonics, pictures, and diagrams inside this deck make it one of the best pre-made decks for studying psychiatry.

Dorian advises suspending all cards first (Ctrl + A + J), watching OME, and then unlocking cards by subdeck topic. About a week or two into class, they then recommend starting UWorld questions. The full methodology can be found in the Reddit write-up here.

Download Dorian’s MS3 Clerkship Deck Psychiatry here

Psychiatry Clerkship Anki Deck (based on Master The Boards)

Deck Type	Clinical Psychiatry
Cards	599
Card Format	Basic/Cloze
Year of Upload	2019
Required Plugins	N/A
Download size	1.3 GB
Download link	M3 Deck

Reddit user u/RandomActsofCaffeine put this Psychiatry Clerkship deck together to help them in their med school studies.

It takes the psychiatry section of Master The Boards USMLE Step 2 CK as its primary source.

This deck is built with rapid review in mind, keeping one fact to a card via the cloze format.

You’ll see it covers all the relevant pharmacology and pathology involved in psychiatry…

The decks’ cards are formatted simplistically, giving you the high-yield takeaway information and contextualizing facts with additional necessary information…

Here’s another example…

Because this deck is thin on neuropsychiatry it could be a good idea to supplement the cards here with those mentioned in our neurology Anki deck article (especially DocZay’s Anki deck).

Download Psychiatry Clerkship Anki Deck here

Zanki/Anking Psychiatry Anki Deck

Deck Type	Psychiatry Basics/Clinical
Cards	496
Card Format	Basic/Cloze
Year of Upload	2021
Required Plugins	N/A
Download size	3 GB
Download link	Anking Overhaul Step 1/Step 2

Possibly the best Anki deck for psychiatry is the one that lives inside Zanki/Anking Overhaul.

This is the most updated deck on this list and probably the most tried and tested of all medical school Anki decks.

The psychiatry cards are all individually tagged and organized inside this deck meaning you can suspend all the other cards and focus only on the topics you need.

Cards are based on:

B&B Psychology
First Aid Psychology
Sketchy Pharmacology

And more!

Similar to Dorian’s deck, the cards are mainly cloze format.

Here’s an example card…

And here’s how the psychiatry section is tagged and categorized…

Anking has a great video on how to honor your psych rotation (while using this deck) below…

Download Anking Overhaul Step 1/Step 2 here

Additional Psychiatry Resources

There are several other platforms besides Anki for those of you who are interested.

Depending on how far into the specialty you wish to go, each of these resources goes into varying depth.

Recommended Psychiatry Textbooks

Although it’s not necessary to study psychiatry from textbooks, the following recommendations can be a nice supplement to digital flashcards.

Kaplan & Sadock’s Pocket Handbook of Clinical Psychiatry

This concise, easy-to-use guide is perfect for carrying with you on the wards and quickly referencing. At 600 pages it’s super-comprehensive too.

Cafer’s Psychopharmacology: Visualize to Memorize 270 Medication Mascots

If you’re a fan of Sketchy Pharmacology and illustrative mnemonics, this could be worth a look. Mainly designed for nursing students looking to rapidly memorize all clinically relevant psychiatric drugs, it’s a fun and memorable alternative.

Podcasts

Psychiatry & Psychotherapy Podcast

This podcast, from David Puder, M.D., features a lot of interesting episodes on popular psych topics like Alzheimer’s, OCD, psychosis, and more.

Video

Emma Holliday

Emma Holliday has an excellent 2-hour lecture covering high yield psychiatry topics.

You can check out our complete guide to Emma Holliday’s High Yield Lectur es (along with PDF’s) here.

OnlineMedEd

Just as Dorian’s Clerkship Deck recommends, OnlineMedEd is a great resource to run through in preparation for psychiatry. Although you have to sign-up first, the 21 lessons in the Psychiatry section are well worth the entire 5.6-hour runtime.

Also, make sure you run through their 100 psychiatry questions.

Where To Find More Anki Psychiatry Decks

We highly recommend going on Reddit and searching the r/medicalschoolanki community.

You can filter your results to see the most recent and most relevant pre-made Anki psychiatry decks for your studies.

Why Use An Anki Psychiatry Deck?

Excellent free resource
Saves time making your own cards while covering the most high yield principles

Top Tips For Using Anki Psychiatry Flashcard Decks

There can be lots of information on some cards which can be overwhelming. Our top tip is to keep it SIMPLE and make sure you are actively practicing cards on a regular basis.

Keep reviewing the cards where possible, i.e. once you have finished your set for the day, briefly make a mental note or write down on a whiteboard any crucial new information you learned.

If you’re studying from a large multi-subject pre-made Anki deck, make sure you use tags and suspend (ctrl + J) all other cards outside of psychiatry topics.

The general consensus among students studying psychiatry for clerkships is to review neurology, fluid, and electrolytes, as well as endocrine sections from UWorld as early as you can.

Then move on to the NBME’s Clinical Science Mastery Series practice exams.