Top 10 Online Resources for Physician Associate and Medical Students

Studying medicine is a pretty hefty task, whether you’re a medical student or a physician associate student. We live in the age of information, which means lots of great, interactive alternatives to the traditional textbook approach to learning, but the sheer number of options can be overwhelming.

Here’s my list of the top ten online resources for PA and medical students.

 

1. Osmosis

Osmosis is a customisable learning resource designed to teach students about the anatomy, physiology and pathophysiology of medical conditions across the main specialties in medicine.

What’s included:

The Osmosis website and the Osmosis app contain easy-to-follow videos, interactive anatomy models, flashcards and single best answer (SBA) type questions. Although to access these resources, Prime membership is needed.

There are over 27,000 multiple choice questions and flashcards to quiz yourself. On this interactive platform you can create your own private workspace for uploading your study notes, create a personalised study calendar and share resources with friends. Key learning points are given after each question, regardless of whether you got it right or wrong.
 

Available on: PC, Apple store, Google Play store, YouTube

Cost: Prime membership starts from £7.87 per month, or head here for a free trial. 

 

2. Geeky Medics

Geeky Medics is a learning resource created by medical students and junior doctors. The content mostly revolves around clinical skills.

What’s included:

The Geeky Medics website provides resources for learning about common medical and surgical conditions, clinical skills guides and a new Geeky Quiz feature. The Geeky Medics app contains videos and mark schemes for the most commonly-tested clinical skills such as clinical examinations, clinical procedures, communication skills, data interpretation and written skills.

The videos are very thorough, making them perfect for OSCE revision. The app allows you to time yourself and then mark yourself against a marksheet, much like a practice OSCE. The history taking guides are very detailed too. All resources are annotated so that you know why you’re asking certain questions or what you might expect to find on certain examinations.

The Geeky Quiz feature is still sparkly new, and you can contribute your own quiz questions and watch your scores increase. There’s even potential to achieve medals and the Geeky team can provide you with a CPD certificate for your contribution to medical education.
 

Available on: PC, Apple store and Google Play store

Cost: All resources on the website are free. On the app, the cardiovascular examination section and the communication guides are free to access. To unlock the full content of the app, a one-off payment of £4 is required.

 

3. Prognosis

 

Prognosis is a revision game which allows you to select a virtual patient to diagnose and manage. You will be given some clinical information about the patient and what you find when you examine them. You must then decide which tests you would like to carry out, and you will be given the results.

Based on the results, you must choose how you will treat the patient. Once you are finished, you will receive a score out of a possible three stars. You can then decide whether you’d like to go back and do something differently, or if you would like to see a breakdown of what you did right and wrong. Following each case, you are given information about the diagnosis and reasoning for the case, a discussion about the condition diagnosed and some concise take-home messages

What’s included: There are over 600 cases to play, spanning 30 medical specialties

Available on: PC, Apple store and Google Play store

Cost: Free, thanks to the professionals who volunteer their time to update questions and ensure their accuracy.

 

4. PassMedicine

PassMedicine is a website providing revision for medical exams including medical school finals, the MRCP, the USMLE, MRCPsych and other UK exams. There is also a “medical student years 1-3” section.

 

What’s included:

The medical student section includes 1990 questions across the main areas of medicine taught at medical school including cardiology, endocrine and psychiatry. There is also a Passmedicine textbook filled with concise study notes and links to further resources.The textbook allows you search for topics and you can even add your own notes to the pages.

The questions are SBA style, much like the exams that PA students and medical students sit. PassMedicine includes a knowledge tutor which tests you on areas where you require more practice, using spaced repetition learning. After each question, you are shown how your performance compares to others. This can be a little disheartening when first starting out!

 

Available on: PC. The website is also mobile and tablet-friendly

Cost: The medical student section is free. 

 

5. Confidence

Confidence is a website created by Meducation, which tests you on topics using an algorithm which determines the areas in which you need more practice. The questions come in the form of true and false questions as well as SBA type questions.

It offers a personalised learning platform, allowing you to bookmark questions you encounter and write notes alongside them. You can also track your progress week by week, and the Confidence algorithm will determine which areas you need more practice in.

 

What’s included:

With your confidence membership, you can access a large bank of revision questions spanning all areas of medicine. You can also take mock exams against the clock, with the option to review your answers at the end. The questions cover a massive range of topics from simple anatomy to infectious diseases

You can select which exam you’re studying for and choose what format you would like the questions to be in e.g. true and false vs SBA. The choice of exams does not apply to PA students, but the UK medical finals option covers all topics a PA student would need

Available on: PC. The website is also tablet and mobile friendly.

Cost: Confidence is completely free to use!

 

6. Kahoot

Kahoot is a platform for taking and creating quizzes based on topics from vascular surgery to 80s pop hits.

 

What’s included: < /p>

You can play quizzes created by others or, by signing up, you can create your own quizzes. Once you have created a quiz, you can give your friends the game code, and everybody can play along at the same time. For example, in a classroom setting, the quizmaster can log in on the class computer, and project the questions onto the whiteboard, and the class can access the quiz on their phones, tablets or laptops.

This is great for group revision sessions. If each person in the group is allocated a topic to prepare a quiz on, you can learn together, covering several topics in a short space of time.

Available on: PC, Apple store and Google Play store

Cost: Free

 

7. Pulsenotes

Pulsenotes is an online learning platform where subscribers can access videos, lecture notes and practice questions.

What’s included:

All content requires a paid subscription, which includes access to over 70 videos and their corresponding lecture notes, as well as a bank of over 700 practice questions.

For each area of medicine, you can select whether you want to see all sub-specialties or whether you’d like to view just the basic science, the clinical elements or the pharmacology. You can create your own exam by choosing which topics you’d like to be tested on, and you can also choose to be tested only on questions you have answered incorrectly on previous attempts. You can then go back and review your answers at the end of the exam.

 

Available on: PC, the website is also tablet-friendly

Cost: Subscription is £5 per month

8. YouTube

 

There are plenty of channels on YouTube providing medical revision videos. My favourites include Handwritten Tutorials, Armando Hasudungan and Khan Academy.

What’s included:

Videos published by these channels include anatomy, physiology, pharmacology and specific medical conditions.

Great for days where you need a break from the library and textbooks. Medical guidelines are constantly changing and they vary from place to place, so it’s important to check that the information is up to date and relevant to your health board though.

Available on: PC, Apple store and Google Play store

Cost: Free

9. Figure 1

 

Figure 1 is an app where health professionals share interesting real-life cases and ask specialists around the world for their opinion.

What’s included:

The app gives you access to thousands of cases across different areas of medicine. You can choose what type of cases you’d like to see, and you can comment on cases too.

A good place to practice thinking about clinical presentations and developing differential diagnoses, you can read comments from different healthcare professionals to see how they would manage that patient. It's a great place to practice interpreting ECGs and imaging, as well as looking at skin rashes and other stigmata of illnesses

However, because of the nature of the app, the cases tend to be unusual and rare. It is therefore not a particularly helpful revision tool.

Available on: PC, Apple store, Google Play store

Cost: Free

10. MDCalc

MDCalc is a tool for carrying out calculations to determine the best course of management for a patient.

What’s included:

MDCalc has calculators for just about every scoring system you will have learnt about in class, such as the ABCD² score for assessing the risk of having a stroke in the days following a TIA (mini stroke). Using the app, you can tick off which areas the patient scores on and, based on the total score, MDCalc will tell you what steps to take next.

Quick access to scoring systems, each scoring system is accompanied by advice for managing these patients, facts and figures and concise summaries of studies supporting the use of the tool

 

Available on: PC, Apple store, Google Play store

Cost: Free

I hope this has been useful. Tweet @pgsearch if you know of any others you think should have made the list!

Until next time,

Aimee

 

For more of Aimee's postgraduate advice and adventures, head here...

You can browse medical courses and physican associate courses right here!