Is Pepper Deck for Micro and Pharm enough in the long run for Step 1? Or, are the traditional AnKing decks more sustainable?

[tepahtiani]

I started my micro/path/immunology block at my school this week and I'm overwhelmed since it's the most compact block so it's hard to keep up with all the cards and videos. I'm thinking I would be more successful with the Pepper deck, but I'm not sure if other people have been successful with it?

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[Hollow Knight]

So sketchy micro + AnKing is kind of the gold standard, and it works super well for in-house exams at my med school.

Your mileage may vary. Maybe your professors watch sketchy and specifically ask things that aren't in it (there are psychopaths out there who have the free time to do this apparently).

For pathology, do pathoma + AnKing

For immunology, do boards and beyond. Or just look at your professor's stuff I guess.

The Pepper deck is actually in AnKing. It's just that AnKing has more stuff. Maybe somebody who used it will chime in.

What does your study flow look like? Just trying to see what's eating up your time.

For the record, I have done very well in my school's preclinical curriculum, and it's almost over. We'll see if I pass step 1.......

 

[tepahtiani]

Ah nice, thank you for breaking it down! Yeah, I was asking because I'm not sure if people feel confident in only using Pepper deck for micro and pharm as opposed to using all the cards for micro and pharm in the AnKing deck. In other words, I'm wondering if people feel that Pepper is comprehensive enough to be okay.

I've struggled to keep up with cards before and this block I'm making the effort to complete my reviews each day even if it slows me down. At the same time we have like 20-25 lectures a week this block compared to 10 a week during last block. So, the adjustment is hard and that's why I've been considering only using Pepper for micro and pharm.

 

[Hollow Knight]

I feel you. I have struggled to keep up as well. But I definitely perform better when I do.

Hopefully somebody chimes in but honestly that deck is pretty old at this point.

 

[esob]

In general, yes....and no. Pepper's value is just the power of spaced repetition of sketchy. That is to say, whatever approach you take to associating Mona Lisa sitting at a table in a space cantina while being serenaded by a couple of flute-playing aliens with the fact that piperacillin treats Pseudomonas is what matters. You can do that with Pepper and other decks such as Rucks, lolnotacop, etc.

Pick one that you like and marry it and you'll be fine. I used lolnotacop until I decided it was too many cards, then switched to pepper before I decided that those cards had too much info per card before finally switching to rucks. In the end, it was really just the spaced repetition of sketchy that made it memorable.