Family medicine is a common med school and allied health subject and a popular medical specialty.
Studying family medicine from pre-made Anki decks is one of the best ways to introduce yourself to core topics and achieve real mastery over the material.
The digital flashcards in each of the following decks can help you do exactly that!
The Best Family Medicine Decks
The 4 decks we’ll be looking at are:
- Dorian’s M3 Family Medicine Deck (best for differential diagnoses)
- Hoop’s Drugs with Dosages, Interactions Anki Deck (high yield drugs)
- USPSTF A,B and D Recommendations FM Clerkship (for USPSTF guidelines)
- Aquifer Family Medicine Anki Deck (most comprehensive)
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 family medicine learning resources at the end of this article too!
Dorian’s M3 Family Medicine Deck
| Deck Name: | Dorian’s M3 Clerkship Deck: Family Medicine |
| Cards: | 1894 |
| Card Format: | Basic |
| Year of Upload: | 2019 |
| Required Plugins: | N/A |
| Download size: | 182.9 MB |
| Download link: | Dorian’s M3 Clerkship Deck: Family Medicine |
Redditor u/Dorian222 covers Family Medicine thoroughly (1894 total cards) in this multi-subject deck.
It’s based on over 90% of Zanki’s original cards (read this article; What Is The Best Anki Deck For Step 1? to find out more about Zanki – this deck is actually integrated into the latest version of Anking/Zanki) with additions from smaller pre-made decks (Tzanki/Doc/Bros).
The family medicine deck is based on the following sources:
- OnlineMedEd
- UWorld
- Case Files
- NBME
This deck consists of short cards focused on pattern recognition. Each card has 1-2 cloze deletions.
Here is a sample card on colorectal cancer screening from Case 1:
A lot of the cards are disease recognition focused (e.g. Symptom 1 + Symptom 2 + Symptom 3). This is useful as the cards compare and contrast similar diseases in the same place, helping you with the differential diagnoses.
All cards have many images/diagrams/mnemonics in the Extra section.
The deck is structured by the following topics:
Here’s how its recommended to work through this deck if you’re on a family medicine clerkship:
- As you go through the Family Med clerkship, start watching OnlineMedEd (OME) for an overview and unlock the cards by subdeck topic as you watch the videos
- 1-2 weeks into the clerkship, do UWorld questions. Use the browse button to find keywords. Try boiling it down to 1-2 facts per question and unlock those cards
- Keep reviewing the cards through the clerkship whenever you’re free
Here’s another flashcard example from Case 42 (Palpitations)…
As we’ve suggested before, Dorian’s M3 deck is also great for studying surgery (Best Surgery Anki Decks) and psychiatry (Best Psychiatry Anki Decks) too.
Download Dorian’s M3 Clerkship Anki Deck: Family Medicine here
Hoop’s Drugs with Dosages & Interactions Anki Deck
| Deck Name: | Hoop’s Drugs |
| Cards: | 866 |
| Card Format: | Basic |
| Year of Upload: | 2019 |
| Required Plugins: | N/A |
| Download size: | 136 KB |
| Download link: | Hoop’s Drugs |
This deck created by u/originalhoopsta contains 866 cards, however, only 101 of these are specific for Family Medicine. It covers the high yield drugs encountered in the latter, as well as in anesthesiology and emergency medicine.
The cards, which are strictly text-based and feature no images, cover contraindications, mechanisms, duration of action, dosages, other names, and other drug interactions.
Each flashcard has been carefully edited and checked for consistency and accuracy.
The creator does not use Sketchy in the deck as it is more clinically focused and less board-exam focused. It is targeted more at residents specializing in family med.
The deck is structured as below:
Here is an example card on spironolactone:
USPSTF A, B, and D Recommendations: Family Medicine Anki Deck
| Deck Name: | USPSTF A, B, and D Recommendations |
| Cards: | 55 |
| Card Format: | Basic |
| Year of Upload: | 2017 |
| Required Plugins: | N/A |
| Download size: | 12 KB |
| Download link: | USPSTF A,B and D Recommendations |
This is a relatively older deck consisting of 55 cards useful for US family medicine shelf and clinic exams.
The cards are formatted in basic back-to-front style with simple text prompts.
Most of the questions are in the form of “Who should be screened?” or “What is the current guideline for a certain pathology?”, in line with the United States Preventive Services Task Force (USPTF) primary care guidelines.
Here is a sample card from the deck on the age for colorectal cancer screening…
And here is another example based on the USPSTF guidelines for hypertension:
Download the USPSTF A,B and D Recommendations Anki Deck here
Aquifer Family Medicine Anki Deck
| Deck Name: | Aquifer FM |
| Cards: | 1459 |
| Card Format: | Basic |
| Year of Upload: | 2020 |
| Required Plugins: | N/A |
| Download size: | 46.6 MB |
| Download link: | Aquifer FM |
This is a more recent, comprehensive deck aimed at students studying (or taking exams) based on the Aquifer platform but is also suitable for medical students, physician assistant students, and also nurse practitioner students running through family medicine.
The Redditor u/95ragtop made the deck using the summaries at the end of each family medicine case in the Aquifer course.
The deck is structured to run alongside the course and is broken down into case chapters:
For students who don’t plan on using Aquifer but still want to study family medicine, you can search for key terms/topics in the browser and unlock those relevant to your area of study.
Here is an example card from Case 3 in the deck:
And here is another card on Case 25 focused on anatomy (the labrum):
Download Aquifer FM Anki deck here
Additional Family Medicine Anki Resources
Aside from the shared decks mentioned above, there is also some regional/exam-specific family medicine Anki decks worth checking out:
- CCFP/QE1 Prep by Wesmosis – This deck, designed to help study for Canada’s Certification in the College of Family Physicians exam, is a useful 549-card Anki deck
- Anking v.10 – As mentioned before, the newest version of this deck includes Dorian’s M3 family medicine deck and is an excellent resource for general study
Depending on how far into the subject you wish to go, each of these resources goes into varying depth.
Recommended Family Medicine Textbook
Case Files Family Medicine, Fourth Edition
Featuring 60 real-life cases designed for discussion inside of the Family Medicine clerkship, this book has everything high-yield you’ll ever likely need to know. Every case has complete discussions, references, definitions, and valuable USMLE-review questions that can guide you on how to approach clinical problems and maximize your exam scores.
Video
Lecturio
Lecturio has a really solid Family Medicine lecture series that’s just under 9 hours long and made up of 92 individual videos. Running through these, coupled with the 369 quiz questions and 102 articles, is one of the best ways to completely cover the subject.
Check out our Lecturio review here to learn more.
Where To Find More Anki Family Medicine Decks
We highly recommend going to AnkiWeb.net and r/medicalschoolanki and looking at the family med offerings.
You can filter your results to see the most recent and most relevant pre-made Anki decks via search.
Why Use An Anki Family Medicine Pre-Made Deck?
- Excellent free resource
- Saves time making your own cards while covering the most high yield principles
- Gives you more time to do practice questions!
Top Tips For Using Anki Family Medicine 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 where your study session ended.
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 the usual family med topics.
The same goes for making sure you only cover the topics you’ve already studied in your primary learning resource!
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Hey guys, I’m Sumran. I’m a British 5th-year international medical student at the Medical University of Varna, Bulgaria. I transitioned straight from completing my A-Levels into university. Currently, I have interests in Psychiatry and Gastroenterology. Outside of medicine, I enjoy reading crime novels and visiting art exhibitions.