Microcards Cards – January 1, 2011

My Background - 1st year medical student 3wk microbiology/immunology classContent - These are great because there's a lot of content, but not so great because... there is a lot of content haha. I do enjoy having these exceptionally thorough cards because I am *sure* I will not have time to consistently make my own extensive flashcards or notes during this 3 week block/class/theme... It's simply information overload for such a short period of time. Like science on crack. Anyway, I digress.Each organism (or virus) has an image and a clinical case on the front. The back of the cards have the clinical representation, pathobiology, Dx, treatment, quick facts, and "study tips".My nuances are 1) they could have punched holes in these and provided a ring or at least organized the content on the cards in a way that users could have punched a hole in each card themselves. -These are easy to lose. 2) a table of contents would have been lovely. Yes, I know there is an index in the back, but a table of content would have just made my life easier.ULTIMATELY... I know I stated a lot of positive things above... but... if you have difficulty paying attention these cards are not for you. It's TOO much info on a single card and it always felt overwhelming studying them. I used them for some of the gram positives, then I was just like FI and used another resource. I mean micro is rough no matter regardless of the resource, but these cards just brought that brutality & misery to life. I'd look at this stack of 150-200 cards and think 'damn... I'm supposed to learn alllllll of that in the next 2 weeks' and then I'd become a little anxious lol. Scenario: professor A has 100 slides each with minimal info that goes big picture to little picture vs professor B that has 15 jam packed slides - no bullets, font size 12 (on a PPT slide). If you prefer professor A's organization do not utilize these. I ended up using Picmonic for the bulk of the material and cards for the material that was not covered.I'll update this if I decide to use these to study during step 1. I figure by then it won't be as intimidating.

These have a lot of information on them, and I would not consider these flashcards in the sense of being used for rapid memorization and rapid turnover for quizzing yourself. I bought these to study for Step 1, and started using them about 3 months before my exam. At first I casually perused them at my leisure, relearning micro many months after taking the class. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND BUYING THIS FOR YOUR MICRO CLASS, PRIOR TO BOARDS STUDYING. these cards are very clearly laid out and provide a pretty thorough understanding of each bug. I was overwhelmed by the way material was presented in my micro class, and these would have made it much easier. That being said, I am finding them very useful for step 1 studying as well and incorporate them in my daily study plan.

Bought these for my micro block during the first year of medical school along with at least half of my classmates. They are a great compact summary of the majority of micro you need to know as a first year medical student. As I'm starting to organize for studying for Step 1, I know these are going to be an invaluable resource for reviewing information from last year. They are convenient, portable, and condense a large topic into a manageable work load. Must have for medical students.Pros:-Color coding for gram positive, gram negative etc. is very helpful-Organization flow chart cards at the beginning of each section were also very helpful in creating a framework for studying-Every card is numbered so you can take out the ones you need and still figure out where to put them back-Classic clinical case presentations are included on each card-Cards are easy to write on and have enough free space to annotate with additional information from lectures etc.

I bought these during intense Step 1 preparation - while they are amazingly detailed and very clearly organized, I think they are more helpful for basic science micro classes - as in, they'd be of much more benefit in your initial pass through the material and preparation for term exams. For board prep, they are very board relevant, but what I ended up doing was picking out the most high yield organisms/cards and using those as last minute review. Some of the best features in these cards are the photographs and cartoons, as well as the algorithm cards for G+ and G- / virus taxonomy because those are heavily tested and the cards come in really handy when you need to look those things up quickly.

I bought these cards mainly for Step 1 and I went through all of them once. I thought they were helpful, especially the trees at the beginning of every section that show you how things are divided. These review cards had good information, some of which I thought was a little extra for the boards. If you learned micro well during first year, then the combination of First Aid and UWorld should be sufficient to prepare for Step 1 microbiology. Overall these cards are decent but I would not buy them again. Also one thing to keep in mind is that the information on these cards may be a little too "clinical" for first year microbiology classes. The info is mainly geared towards Step 1.

I used these cards for my micro exam. They are very helpful as supplemental studying materials. Each cards contains a pretty set formula:1) Clinical presentation and visual of what the organism would look like when cultured on the front.2) Normal symptoms, paths of transmission, treatments, etc. on the back.This is really great for getting the important parts about each of these microorganisms and when used with a book like  Clinical Microbiology Made Ridiculously Simple , you can pretty much get everything that you need for most micro courses. Do not buy these cards if you're looking for flash cards. These cards are really just another more concise text book in card form.

It was great for the revision as the essentials are all in the cards.

EXCELLENT FOR USMLE STEP 1.

These are great. Shipped very fast.