How do you revise your healthcare degree at university?

The first thing I do, before I start my revision, is to establish a timetable so that I can plan out my time and make sure that I keep a balance between work and the things I do to maintain my mental well-being. For example, it is vital that you give yourself time to go outdoors, spend time with family and friends and, most importantly, you must give yourself time to sleep and eat well.  

Most of my revision is centred around completing Anki cards which have been passed down by medical students in older years. I also make my own Anki cards on specific topics that I find hard or on single best answer (SBA) questions that I have previously gotten wrong. Anki is a really good way of actively recalling information however it requires you to spend a significant amount of time working through the cards on a regular basis (otherwise they build up!). I would recommend starting these as early as possible (at the start of the year ideally) so that you can build up your knowledge.

Amelia Snook, 3rd Year, Medicine, University College London

Prior to starting any revision I like to do a few things. The first is to write a list of tasks I need to do and colour code them with red being most urgent and green being least urgent. This helps me visually see how much work I have to do which helps me plan a realistic timetable for my revision. I normally structure my timetable into 2 main blocks, a morning section and an afternoon section. Something I like to do particularly in the winter months is start my morning session quite early and my afternoon session in the early evening. This is so my main break is still during the hours of daylight.

My main revision method is using flashcards and creating condensed mind maps of my notes. I like to use Anki for my flashcards for a few reasons. Firstly, decks can be shared so I can use other people's decks as well as my own. Secondly, I have it as an app on my phone and laptop so it just makes revision really easy to do in any situation. Finally and probably most importantly Anki has an algorithm which uses both space-based repetition and active recall so I feel personally it helps to build up my long term memory of information I need to know for exams.

Amalia Morris, 1st Year, Medicine, Newcastle University

I revise in lots of different ways, depending on what the exam content is! I really like revising with course mates, it means that we can share the load when making notes and flash cards. When someone is low on motivation and feels stressed, we can be each other’s source of support, and it makes me get up and go to the library because I’m accountable to other people! Lots of the exams we’ve had in second and third year are based on theoretical cases, so my revision focus group prepare theoretical cases, and then we plan how we would tackle the question, write our own answer and peer mark. I think everyone really benefits from this, as they learn something new whilst also sharing their own advice and ideas! Remember to bring snacks too, you might become a group favourite!

My other advice is to leave the house when you’re revising and switch up the locations regularly. I spend time in different cafes, meaning I can look forward to trying different coffees as a good motivator. But I also use different study spaces in the student union, the library, or when I don’t fancy going out to do work, I might use my kitchen or a house mates desk! Keep switching it up so it becomes less monotonous!

Abbie Yates, 3rd Year, Speech and Language Therapy student

I switched my revision technique this year and haven’t looked back! It’s allowed me to learn a lot more knowledge in less time. First I start with question banks. Passmed, Quesmed as many different ones as you can find. I will use them focused on the topic I am learning E.g ‘paediatrics’ I will use the question to learn as opposed to tracking my learning. I will work through the questions and when I get one wrong or don’t feel I understand the topic, I will watch a video or read around the topic and then create Anki flashcards with the cloze function (a fill-in-the-gap style function) I will copy and paste answer explanations from Passmed and use these as the base of my flashcard. 

Then of course I will also make flashcards on the lectures instead of making notes and use the Ali Abdaal algorithm to ensure I’m up to date on all topics and I find this works best for me and has given me more free time.

Leah Brooks, 4th year, Medicine, University of Sheffield 

I find creating a detailed plan of the topics within the subject really helpful. I then colour-code them depending on how confident I am about them. For each module, I will have a set of flashcards that I will add to throughout the term and come exam revision time I will go through them and add mnemonics to remember concepts, equations and other information. I often find if the mnemonic is rude or funny I remember things better. Once I feel like I know things I make sure I have done plenty of practice questions.

Maisie Sinclair, 1st Year Anatomical Sciences, University of Dundee

Finding the right revision technique that works for you can take time and that’s okay! Different techniques work for different people, so please don’t get overwhelmed by how many flashcards your coursemate has done over the weekend! Try to use the first year of university to experiment with a few techniques and see what works best for you. 

For example, blurting is a technique where you write everything you remember about a topic on a piece of paper. Then with a different coloured pen, use your resources to fill in the gaps or correct your work so you can see where you went wrong and what you missed out on. You can do this as a one-off to get an understanding of what you need to revise or repeat this exercise again after a period of time to see how you’ve progressed! 

I think it’s good to have a decent understanding of the content before committing it to memory. So in my first year, I wrote down a list of all the lectures which I knew I needed at least a bit of work on, then colour-coded them according to how confident I was with each of them. It was then a case of watching YouTube videos or looking through other online resources for each of the topics systematically so I had the understanding down. It then becomes easier to memorise the content with the techniques described by my colleagues above! 

Pragnya Dara, 3rd Year, Medicine, University College London

Although it has been a while since I have had to revise, I still would use the same techniques! I list each topic and colour code based on my level of confidence - red for don’t have a clue, orange for some idea and green for know the topic inside out! This helps me direct my revision on areas that I struggle more with or require more time. Revising with students in the years above me helped me focus my revision into what was really required and they offered tips and tricks for exams they had already taken. For practical skills I made sure to take full advantage of extra sessions to make sure I felt confident and was utilising my time well. For OSCE-style exams, I revised with friends and acted out stations and wrote my own mark schemes, which I eventually passed on to younger students. 

Katherine Brock, Qualified dental therapist (Graduated from the University of Sheffield in 2021)