Medical & Nursing Certifications

How to Study for Medical Certifications

There are several ways to study for medical certifications. You may begin by looking at the exam outline to know which subjects you should be preparing for. Afterward, you can buy a textbook and take practice tests using the web or a mobile app.

Whatever your order of operations, Brainscape has thousands of flashcards that may be used for your practice tests, which may be accessed using your desktop or smartphone. These flashcards follow a scientifically-backed algorithm that repeats questions and information for as long as necessary.

When you study using Brainscape, the system will show you questions with their corresponding answer. You will then rate your knowledge of this information from 1-5, the latter being the highest.

Brainscape will keep on repeating them at appropriate intervals for the items you have rated low until you are confident enough to rate these items a 5.

For more advice, check out our test prep tips. 

Perfect for All Your Medical Exams

Whether you're taking the PANCE, preparing for the NCLEX, studying for the USMLE, or prepping for a medical assistant certification, Brainscape has the perfect flashcards just for you.

Because these exams require you to memorize thousands of terms and concepts in a minimal time, you cannot rely on the manual pen and paper method. You need Brainscape’s system to help you memorize this information faster and retain the information longer.

Teachers, tutors meticulously create these flashcards, and top students from the Ivy League and other top universities, along with publishers from MCAT and USMLE, to help learners in their preparation.

It also helps that the questions and information found in these cards are based on previous tests. This assures you that what you are learning is authentic and updated.

More Convenient & Effective than Anki

Although Anki has long been popular in med schools, Brainscape’s flashcards are more effective and convenient to use for several reasons.

First, Brainscape has better authoring collaboration and better content organization, which results in better flashcard quality. For the learner, this means you get better information.

Second, Brainscape may be synced between devices more easily. You don’t need to download a desktop app to use the full features of Brainscape. This is highly advantageous, especially if you don’t carry your laptop with you all the time. You can access it using any computer.

Third, Brainscape makes it easier for individuals, schools, and other organizations to use the app. You don’t have to understand rocket science to know how to use it. Brainscape’s interface is intuitive even for first-timers, making it easy for almost anyone to create their own flashcards and share them with their team.

Fourth, Brainscape has a more flexible spaced repetition algorithm. While Anki schedules things for specific dates, Brainscape allows you to have more control, plus it has a relative repetition timing.

Brainscape understands that those who want to learn using flashcards don’t have the leisure to create cards using a complex interface. It saves you from exerting time and effort to learn how to use the software and focus on things that matter ASAP.

In other words, Brainscape teaches you how to study more effectively and conveniently.

How Spaced Repetition Helps You Learn Faster

Brainscape uses a highly effective methodology of learning concepts faster called Confidence-Based Repetition. This is a combination of active recall, metacognition, and spaced repetition.

Active recall has been proven to be far more effective than its passive counterpart, where you stash information in your brain without knowing if it’s kept there or not.

Using active recall, you are required to retrieve answers for a certain question actively. In Brainscape, for example, you will be shown a card that asks you to define a medical term. Before you click on “reveal the answer,” you should try your best to retrieve what you know about this term. This process stimulates your brain, and it moves information from short-term memory to long-term retention.

Metacognition, on the other hand, is the awareness of your thought process. Brainscape integrates this method by asking for your confidence rating for each question/information. At the end of every question, you are asked to rate how well you know the answer. This process also exercises your brain and helps you be in control of your thought process.

Lastly, spaced repetition refers to repeating the questions you are not so confident about based on a great algorithm. If, for example, you have low confidence for the functional classification of Acetaminophen, Brainscape will repeat this question until such time you have rated it with high confidence. And repeat it less frequently from then on to make sure you won’t forget.

With these three techniques combined, you are assured of learning new concepts fast because they constantly nudge your brain to work while studying, resulting in better information retention. Once this happens, there’s no need for you to keep on studying the same concepts over and over again, to save you time and effort when studying.

Why not try Brainscape today?