Getting a high score on the USMLE Step 1 and Step 2 is crucial in your medical career.
Many students turn to Sketchy, an online video platform that covers an array of preclinical and clinical material for your exam.
With hundreds of high-yield lessons and quiz questions, it’s certainly an excellent resource for med students.
Using Anki decks is the best way to memorize all Sketchy material to help you pass the USMLE and retain long-term knowledge of these concepts.
This guide will review the best Sketchy medical Anki decks we’ve found from trusted sources.
Best Sketchy Medical Anki Decks
We’ve aimed only to review the decks that offer high-yield information to help you with your exam.
There are more comprehensive decks like the Zanki – Anking Step 1 deck, which covers Sketchy Pharmacology and Microbiology. However, this deck also pulls from many other resources.
Since the card count is very high, it can be demanding to keep up with daily reviews. That’s why we’ve focused on more Sketchy-specific decks that only offer the most high-yield information and won’t consume much study time to review.
For every deck, we’ll look to explain what is inside and tell you about how to utilize the deck best.
Below, we’ll review the following Sketchy medical Anki decks:
- Lolnotacop Anki Deck
- Conaanaa’s SketchyPath SALT Anki Deck
- NourishedStudio’s Pharmacology Anki Deck
- Pepper Deck Microbiology Anki Deck
Note: please make sure you are a paid user of the Sketchy Medicine platform before using any of these decks. It’s important to help keep great educational resources like this alive!
1. Lolnotacop Anki Deck
| Deck Name | Lolnotacop Anki Deck |
| Cards | 391 |
| Card Format | Cloze |
| Year of Upload | 2018 |
| Required Plugins | None |
| Download Size | 272 MB |
| Download Link | Download Lolnotacop Anki Deck |
Lolnotacop Anki deck is a pharmacology-specific deck that covers the Sketchy Pharm chapters.
It’s much less comprehensive than the Zanki decks. However, it’s useful for getting a quick Pharmacology review.
Reddit user u/DepryMD’s did an overhaul of this deck to separate the deck into two sections: bugs (microbiology) and drugs (pharmacology).
This deck reviews the primary drug classes, such as
- Gout drugs
- Antineoplastics
- Antimicrobials
- Antivirals
2. Conaanaa’s SketchyPath SALT Anki Deck
| Deck Name | Conaanaa’s SketchyPath SALT |
| Cards | 3300 |
| Card Format | Basic |
| Year of Upload | 2018 |
| Required Plugins | None |
| Download Size | N/A |
| Download Link | Download Conaanaa’s SketchyPath SALT |
Connanaa SketchyPath SALT Anki Deck reviews Sketchy’s videos from the Pathology section. The cards are divided up in a Google Drive into each particular section.
Unlike most links that require you to download the entire deck, you can download each section.
Essentially, the Reddit user u/connaanaa made a collection of decks available on Google drive. The following decks are
- Blood and Coagulation
- Cardiac
- Endocrinology
- Gastrointestinal
- Hepatobiliary
- Immunology
- Musculoskeletal
- Myeloid and Lymphoid
- Neurology
- Pulmonary
- Reproductive and GU
- SketchyRenal
- Vascular
Every card features images under the answer to further explain these conditions. These images paint a scenario of how these diseases can occur, which can help you recall.
The creator of the deck made sure to decrease any wordiness so that each question gets to the point. Also, nearly all the cards contain the explicitly associated image to help you remember the specific image from Sketchy.
This deck is specifically useful for people trying to use SketchyPath and want to better retain the information.
4. NourishedStudio’s Sketchy Pharmacology and Microbiology Anki Deck
| Deck Name | NourishedStudio’s Sketchy Pharmacology |
| Cards | 2046 |
| Card Format | Basic |
| Year of Upload | 2018 |
| Required Plugins | None |
| Download Size | 158 MB |
| Download Link | Download NourishedStudio’s Sketchy Pharmacology Deck |
This Anki deck covers all of the training and video material in the sketchy Micro and SketchyPharm sections. This is helpful for students who plan on taking the USMLE Step 1 and COMLEX level 1.
The cards within the deck feature small, cropped portions of the overall sketch. This forces you to prioritize and focus on the granular details of each sketch.
The micro deck has 1158 cards, and the pharm deck has 1248 cards. The micro deck is tagged and organized by the following:
- Bacteria
- Fungi
- Parasites
- Viruses
Comparatively, the pharm deck covers the following:
- Antimicrobials
- Antineoplastics
- Autonomic Drugs
- Blood and Inflammation
- Cardio & Renal
- GI & Endocrine
- Neuro & Psych
- Smooth Muscle
Most cards have a Q&A format accompanied by images to help you remember an image better recall the information.
Some cards will provide the image first, forcing you to work backward and remember the concept from the picture. For example, the image below displays a “cracked crab.”
When you reveal the answer, it’ll force you to recall the substance antimetabolites and treatment.
5. Sketchy Micro Pepper Deck
| Deck Name | Sketchy Micro Pepper Deck |
| Cards | 958 |
| Card Format | Basic |
| Year of Upload | 2019 |
| Required Plugins | None |
| Download Size | 118 MB |
| Download Link | Download Sketchy Mico Pepper Deck |
Pepper was a popular source for pharmacology and micro deck. While the pharmacology deck seems to have been removed from Reddit, the microbiology deck still exists.
This deck totals 958 decks, making it appealing to those who want to study for the microbiology portion of the USMLE.
It covers most of the bugs that will be asked in Step 1 and lets you follow along with Sketchy Microbiology.
This deck is mostly in a Q&A format, making it easy to go through.
All of the images help to memorize the term more effectively. For example, the question is, “what is Staph aureus’ main virulence factor?”
The answer is “Protein A.” Then you’ll receive an image of a person holding a staff with an A on top.
Additional Study Resources for Medical Students
There are many study resources available for board exams. Check out our recommendations page for a guide to the best of them.
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