How To Find The Best Med School Study App For Clinical Practice

Medical students in their final years of study are required to practice clinical encounters and procedures. Our comprehensive collection of OSCE practise stations contain a wide range of cases that empower students through active learning. A clinical examination can be difficult to study or practise for alone, which is why eMedici created a multi-user practice system to optimise group study. The majority of medical schools undertake OSCEs, however, they can vary based on a country's medical practices, which is why eMedici has developed content that matches the Australian standard of medical practice. Our goal is to provide medical learning resources that create a framework for your understanding of clinical decision tools so you can become the best healthcare professional you can be.

There are a variety of tools that medical students use, mainly medical flashcards for rote learning of medical knowledge (you can find a free adaptive flashcard app). Medical students have to make sure that their study time is impactful and ensure study sessions are covering the correct study materials. While pre-med students or even school students would have used flashcard reviews to learn human anatomy or latin terms, the understanding of medical concepts required of more mature medical students is much higher. Clinical students can find this more difficult, as many apps do not cater for active learning through case studies and clinical application. Studying patient care, diagnostic reasoning, clinical scenarios as well as the human body and medical news is difficult to bring together without a medical reference app. eMedici has been accumulating medical study material written by medical experts for over 20 years, with the mission that key learning material for medical students would become more accessible for both students and medical schools. The study tools designed by eMedici focus on preparing medical students for the medical exam used by most medical schools, and covers the difficult clinical concepts that many students often find themselves unprepared for. Studying alone to improve your clinical skills is hard, especially when the knowledge base is scattered and shared over many platforms and libraries, or even when it requires multiple subscriptions.

What are OSCE Stations and How Do I Practise For Them?

eMedici has over 100 OSCE stations that can be practised alone or with a group. OSCE, which stands for Objective Structured Clinical Examination, is a practical clinical exam for the purpose of assessing clinical skills and application of knowledge. You will be tested on your ability to take a history from the patient, perform physical examinations, your communication (which can include your ability to display an appropriate amount of empathy), and counselling and diagnostic reasoning skills.

Studying for OSCE exams can be difficult to do alone, which is why eMedici designed an evaluation system to mark each others' performance in a group, along with a timer to keep things moving. Each group member needs their own account to be part of the group, so check with your university's medical student society for their discount code.

How Do I Maximise My Retention When Studying?

eMedici's platform has thousands of multiple choice questions based on clinical cases, with clinical reasoning and explanations after you have chosen your answer. Medical students have a large study-load and high workload which requires optimisation to get everything done properly. When entering the clinical years, much more application is required than in previous years of study which have a focus on rote learning of basic sciences. Clinical application can include reasoning about a clinical situation and applying knowledge to make a diagnosis, order investigations, and decide management steps. A combination of comprehension and application are required to reach analysis, synthesis and evaluation, which you will be assessed on in the clinical years.

In Bloom's taxonomy, a commonly recognised learning framework, the original thesis for retaining knowledge was listed as:

  1. Basic knowledge

  2. Comprehension

  3. Application

  4. Analysis

  5. Synthesis

  6. Evaluation

eMedici has specifically covered each of these aspects to ensure medical students can attain the necessary understanding that is required for clinical curriculum success. Even with highly efficient study schedules, rote learning cannot fully support clinical understanding. Digital flashcard apps are good for the first few years, to recall basic knowledge and comprehension, but they won't get you over the line during your clinical years. eMedici's content covers the entire spectrum of Bloom's taxonomy, with Case Studies, Multiple Choice Questions, and OSCE Stations requiring comprehension, application, analysis, and synthesis of basic knowledge to reason through real-world clinical situations.

The field of medicine contains many difficult concepts, especially for medical students that are already under significant pressure. Preparing for clinical rotations with eMedici is will significantly boost your confidence, as your retention levels will be higher than rote learning or typical study, due to the synthesis and analysis completed through the platform's features.

Unfortunately, medical students don't get much diversity when it comes to their learning style needs being met, as the content load is too vast. Our clinical knowledge base has been designed to make revision clean, quick and with maximum retention to minimise the time spend studying and maximise access to knowledge. Your clinical skills are born when your clinical knowledge increases, which has a positive correlation with your confidence.

Australian medical students can access authentic revision and education support in their medical studies through eMedici and lower stress for upcoming exams. Think: reduced lecture notes, less handwritten notes, more clinical questions and more accurate clinical diagnosis because you're across all the key concepts. It's a strong scaffold for a future physician to have. If you have any app suggestions for us (maybe you'd like to see us launch our own digital flashcard apps) you can leave feedback on any of our MCQs or send us an email, we would love to hear from you!

Whatever your current progress may be, we want to ensure that your mental health can cope with the workload by providing an amazing study app that supports the active learning study process and provides medical learning resources that support your understanding of a clinical environment. Our mission is for you to have a strong understanding of clinical presentations, clinical procedures, clinical decision tools and even medical terms you might not have previously heard of. 

Want to download the mobile app? Click this link to create your account in our app and start learning on the go.