5 (one-time, but real)

Making your own cards is slow

If you can push through the first 2 weeks and commit to daily reviews, Anki rewards you for 4 years. If you can't, you'll quit, and the rest of this list won't save you.

Add-on: AnkiHub, an optional subscription service that keeps the AnKing deck synced and updated automatically. Worth it if you can afford it; not strictly necessary.

2. UWorld — the question bank everyone uses for a reason

UWorld is the question bank for Step 1 and Step 2. It's expensive, it's mandatory, and there's basically no debate about this in the M3/M4 community. The questions are board-format, the explanations are textbook-quality, and most students do every question at least twice before their exam.

You don't need a second question bank in M1. UWorld + Anki is the entire core stack for most students who do well on Step.

When to actually start UWorld: opinions vary, but most current advice is to start during dedicated, with light usage in the second half of M2. Don't burn through the question bank in M1 — you'll forget it and there's no second pass that matters as much as the first.

3. Boards & Beyond — the video resource for understanding before drilling

Boards & Beyond (or Pathoma for path specifically) is the video lecture resource most students use to understand a topic before they drill it in Anki. The flow is: watch the relevant B&B video → read the corresponding chapter in First Aid → unsuspend the AnKing cards for that topic → start drilling.

Watching B&B without then drilling Anki is wasted time. The video gives you the framework; the SRS gives you the retention.

4. Sketchy — when visual mnemonics actually work

Sketchy creates illustrated mnemonic videos for microbiology, pharmacology, and pathology. It's polarizing — some students swear by it, some find it slow. The honest read: for micro and pharm, Sketchy is genuinely the best tool that exists. The mnemonics are sticky in a way that no flashcard alone can replicate. For path, it's good but not essential.

If you've never tried Sketchy, do the free trial in your first month of micro and see if it clicks for you. Some students get a 10-point boost, some don't notice a difference.

5. Pathoma — Dr. Sattar is undefeated

For pathology specifically, Pathoma (Dr. Husain Sattar's video and book combo) is the highest-leverage resource on the entire list. It's compact, it's brilliant, and almost every M2 with a high Step score has been through it twice. Pair with the AnKing pathology cards and you're done.

6. First Aid — the textbook everyone annotates

Less of an "app" and more of a constant reference. The First Aid for the USMLE Step 1 PDF lives on every med student's iPad. It's not where you learn — it's where you look things up after Anki/UWorld/B&B teach you something. The annotation pattern most students use: as you encounter new info from any other resource, jot it in the margin of First Aid. By dedicated, your First Aid is a personalized notes book.

GoodNotes or Notability is the typical app for annotating First Aid on iPad. Either works.

7. Tutoremy — for the pre-clinical material that doesn't have a community deck

Here's where we slot in honestly. Tutoremy is not a replacement for Anki + AnKing. If you're prepping for boards, use Anki. We're going to keep saying this because it's true.

Where Tutoremy fits in a med student's tool stack:

• Pre-clinical coursework that isn't covered by AnKing. Your school's specific anatomy lab manual, the histology slides from your professor, the embryology lecture from week 3 of M1, the case-based learning prompts. None of that is in AnKing because AnKing is built for Step, not for your school's specific curriculum. Tutoremy turns those materials into flashcards and quizzes automatically — useful for the next quiz, useful for not falling behind in class.
• The first weeks of M1, before you've decided whether to commit to Anki. Activation cost matters. If you're not ready to install Anki, set up FSRS, download AnKing, learn the keyboard shortcuts, and start daily reviews — you can use Tutoremy on your weekly material in 30 seconds while you decide.
• For students who tried Anki and bounced off. A non-trivial fraction of M1s try Anki and quit because the UI is brutal. If you're in that camp, the choice is "use a friendlier tool" or "use no tool." Tutoremy is the friendlier tool.

Tutoremy has a real free tier — no trial timer, no credit card. We mention this because most students reading a med school study apps post are already paying for UWorld, B&B, Sketchy, AnkiHub, and a question bank, and we don't want to be one more bill.

When NOT to use Tutoremy: if your goal is Step 1, and you're willing to commit to Anki, just use Anki + AnKing. We will not pretend to be better than the AnKing deck. Nothing is.

8. Notion — for organizing the chaos

M1 generates an enormous amount of administrative and clinical paperwork, scheduling, lecture handouts, study group plans, and rotation logistics. You need somewhere to put it. Notion is the most popular answer because it's free with a .edu email, flexible enough to handle a clerkship tracker and a study schedule and a lecture index in one place, and easy to share with your study group.

Apple Notes works fine if Notion is too much. The point is to have one place, not three.

9. Glean — for lecture recording with structure

If you have ADHD, find lectures hard to focus on, or just want a way to revisit lectures with timestamps and your own notes, Glean is purpose-built for this. It records the lecture, lets you flag moments in real time, and produces a structured set of notes you can return to.

For most students, this is optional. For students who struggle with lecture attention, it's near-essential.

What to ignore

Honest: most of the "AI study apps for med students" you'll see in other listicles are not built for the volume and structure of medical education. They're built for college students. We say this even though Tutoremy is in the same general category — for the core board prep workflow, none of them beat Anki + AnKing, and pretending they do is how M1s end up wasting 6 months on tools that don't get them to a Step score.

Also probably skip: any app that promises "AI-generated USMLE questions" without an established question bank behind it. The questions tend to be subtly wrong in ways that will bite you on the real exam. Use UWorld. There's a reason it costs what it costs.

The minimum viable stack for M1

If you only install four things in your first month of M1:

1. Anki + AnKing deck — daily SRS 2. Boards & Beyond (or Pathoma when you hit path) — video resource 3. Notion or Apple Notes — organization 4. Tutoremy (or similar) — for class-specific material AnKing doesn't cover

That's the entire core. UWorld comes later, in M2 or dedicated. Sketchy is optional but high-leverage for micro/pharm. Everything else is fluff for most students.

TL;DR

The unranked truth: Anki + AnKing + UWorld is 80% of how med students get high Step scores. Everything else on this list, including Tutoremy, is auxiliary. Pick the auxiliary tools that fix your specific bottleneck and ignore the rest.

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Tutoremy turns your school's actual lecture slides, anatomy lab manuals, and histology decks into flashcards and practice quizzes — for the pre-clinical material the community decks don't cover. Free tier always, no trial timer.

Try Tutoremy free →