THE CRAZIEST OPHTHALMOLOGY STUDY SYSTEM EVER DEVISED?
Audio flashcards let you rock the OKAPS and written ophthalmology boards

Interested in improving your OKAP scores and passing your written ophthalmology test? Sure, you could spend the next few months reading through your home study course and laboriously completing question books.

This may not be enough!

As a first year resident, I spent months reading through those books and ranked below average on my OKAPS. A “low blow” for a previously overachieving student with dreams of ocular excellence! Let’s face it … ophthalmology residents are smart folk, and good at tests!

The following year, I changed my tactics, and improved my national ranking by over 45%. How? By making flashcards! I started by writing paper flashcards, but this was taking too long. Instead, I bought an inexpensive voice recorder and began dictating flashcards in a question-answer format. I found these audio files highly useful, as I could load them onto my iPOD and listen to them on the go. By the end of four months I had a collection of over 1,400 flashcard files (averaging 25 seconds each) that I had mastered. Other residents in my program listened to them as well, and our collective ranking was higher than it has ever been at our program!

Now, this collection is available to you! Many of them as free download from this page!

iDoctors with iPods
Using an iPod as a study aid may seem odd at first, as you probably use yours for music. However, the ability to randomly shuffle these audio files and create playlists for individual topics makes learning this material a breeze.

Benefits of these cards:

1. You can listen to them on your ipod in your car, jogging, or walking your dog!

2. ID3 keyword tags makes searching through the questions within iTunes instantaneous! Want to find every question on white-dot syndromes? No problem … there are 30 of them. How about those phacomatosis … no problem, they pop up under the iTunes search immediately.

3. Smart playlists makes it easy to collate high-yield topics (phacomatosis, corneal dystrophies, trials) and hone in on high-yield areas.

Are audioflash cards for you?
This method for studying has been a boon for me, and for those residents who have tried it, but it’s not for everyone. Some people are natural book learners, and others learn only through experience. Still, most people find that data is best learned when gleaned from different sources, and this is definitely a unique source of information.

Obviously, if you DON’T have an iPod mp3 player, these questions won’t be quite as useful. You can listen to them on other mp3 players, but some of the extra features like smart playlists and reading the lyrics (the embedded text version of each flashcard) might not be available on other brands of mp3 players. If you don’t have a player, you can always listen to them using the iTunes media player (a free download from apple) … though obviously, this is not as convenient as it ties you to a computer monitor.

How much is it?
Most of the cards are available from this website for free, if you’ve the patience to download them one-by-one. I am making the entire collection purchasable in zip format so you can download the entire collection at once and save a lot of time.

These dictations took me a long time to record, organize, and especially transcribe. I think you’ll find them worth your time. There is a limited audience for these cards, and many residents will probably end up sharing the files with their colleagues. Hopefully, enough will purchase the complete zip file to defray some of the costs for this otherwise amazingly free website!

Purchase: $24.99, instant download as 14 zipped files (each 20 megs large and containing 100 mp3 files each).

Let’s face it, tests like the OKAPs test your knowledge of ocular trivia and your ability to mentally retrieve bizarre information. These audio flashcards will help!