Introduction FAQ Flashcard Tips Download Purchase

Here are some frequently asked questions about our ophthalmology flashcards. You might want to check out our flashcard “how to” section, and watch the videos on how to use these cards.

What kind of mp3 player is best for playing these files?
Probably the best player is a cheap ipod nano. You definitely need a player with a screen and a tactile scroll wheel. The cards don’t take up much memory space (only 250 megs for all of them) so you don’t need a player with high capacity. I’ve been using a first generation nano with only one gigabyte of space (the lowest available in this model) with excellent result.

How do I get the flashcards onto my mp3 player?
First, download and unzip the audio files onto your computer. Then, import all of these files into iTunes. Once you have them loaded into iTunes, you can sort them as you please and load them onto your USB-connected mp3 player.

How do I arrange the files on my iPod?
They are already broken down into separate albums by specialty, and you can listen through these albums one-by-one if you like. I like to create playlists for high-yield topics and listen to the cards this way.

What are smart playlists?
These are awesome for flashcard management. Smartplaylists are intelligent playlists you create within iTunes (and thus on your portable iPOD mp3 player) that will sort all of your audioflash cards according to simple rules. For example, you can make your smart playlist:
- Play only audiofiles with the keywords “uveitis, uveitic, arthritis, iritis, panuveitis, or inflammation”
- Play only the files you’ve marked as challenging with a “5-star” rating
- Play only flashcards with the keywords white dot syndrome, corneal dystrophies, phacomotosis, studies, trials, HLA, etc..

Can I manage my flashcards on the go … without using my computer?
Not really. iPOD mp3 players don’t have a keyboard, so you can’t really create a folder or playlist to sort your audiofiles while on the go. There are two things you CAN do with your iPOD that are very useful:
1. Change the “star rating” for a card. This means you can have a smart playlist of “5 star difficult questions” … and remove/add cards to this smart playlist by rating your cards as you listen to them. You can make a “1 star rating” collection of material you never want to hear again, and delete all those files the next time you sync your player. There are lots of organization tactics you can perform with thos stars!
2. Create an “ON THE GO” playlist. This is a feature that allows you to make a rudimentary playlist on the device. I don’t find it very useful for flashcards though.

What else can I do with the star rating?
Those stars are very useful, because they allow you to create smartlist rules and then organize your cards as you walk about town. For example, you can create a smart list with every retina question in the collection. You can construct your smartlists such that whenever you rate a question as 1-star, it drops out of all your playlists and you never hear it again. This way, you can work your way through this sub-collection, removing questions as you master them.

You can also create a smartlist that pulls in every question marked as 5-star. These might be the challenging questions, or high-yield ones that you want to rehear the day before your test. This is how I like to organize my cards … I have smart lists for 5-star and 4or5 star questions. As I listen through each ophthalmology subspecialty, I rate them on the star scale. As the test approaches, I focus myself on listening to all the 4 and 5 star questions, and continue to rate them. By the day before the test, I’ve narrowed down my 5-star list to playing back ONLY those questions I’ve felt to be incredibly high-yield, or extremely cram-worthy (like those last minute optic equations and hla associations you wanna read 5 minutes before the test).

How well does random shuffle work?
You can set your iPOD to randomly shuffle through the questions, and this is the best way to review each album or playlist. The iPod shuffle is nice because it randomly works through the cards without repeating any of them.

If you also have music on your device, you may end up having flashcards playing between songs, though, forcing you to be more creative with how you arrange your playlists to avoid this.

How do you make the flashcards? Can I make my own?
I’m using an Olympus voice recorder for recording … this device captures as a wav file. I then import this wav file into iTunes as an mp3 file and change the id3 tag information for organization purposes. Also, I’m doing some extra steps with merging the bumper message on the end of each mp3 file using an mp3 joining program.

How accurate is the information in these files?
Who knows! The majority were made while I was reading the BCSC home study course or reviewing question books like Chern or Mass Eye&Ear. Some of these books are slightly outdated (especially the Chern hla and gene associations) and so the data is sometimes a little out of whack. Plus, there is always the risk that I misinterpreted something or missed the point entirely! I guess what I’m trying to say is, use this at your own risk. These cards aren’t peer-reviewed or edited, and I make NO claims of accuracy!!

There seem to be a lot of misspellings and typos throughout the files!
Yep … I was going for speed, not accuracy, when recording these notes. There are over 1,400 flashcards here, and I don’t plan on proofreading them anytime soon (it takes over 8 hours just to listen to them once, and there’s a lot of facts and difficult-to-spell words involved). Plus, I’m a busy eye resident interviewing for jobs, and I don’t have time to dedicate months reviewing and rewriting everything.

If you see a flashcard that has an obvious misspelling that you’d like to correct, find the appropriate page on this website (you can run a search on the question number) or go to this correction page and leave a comment. Eventually, I’ll get around to fixing the id3 tags and webpage spellings on the webpage and actual mp3s. Thanks!

You totally mispronounce some things
Yep … I’m not a professional actor, and at the time of the recording, was reading about some of these diseases for the first time. Once again, if you find a pronunciation that is completely off, find the question in our online database and leave a comment. If egregious enough, I’ll rerecord it. Once again, this takes time that I’d rather spend making new flashcards.

Can I contribute to this audio collection?
Heck yeah!! If you’re recording your own flashcards and want to add them to this site, I’d just love it. Just send me an email and we’ll figure a way to transfer your collection over. I’ll add your files separate from mine (and of course, won’t be charging other people for your audio collection).

Should I buy an mp3 player?
If you don’t have one, I think you should. There are many other study aids out there for ophthalmology that are audio based. Many of the ocular review courses, such as the Wills and San Antonio course, are available as recorded audio. J. Lawton Smith’s excellent series on neuroophthalmology is available for free online as mp3 download, and ophthalmology podcasts out there! Plus, there is a whole world of audiobooks (check audible.com) and podcasts waiting for you.

Which mp3 player do you recommend?
I recommend buying a cheap iPOD nano … they are tiny, work well with our flashcards, and the newer ones can play video.

Should I buy a more expensive iTouch or iPhone?
These are great players for video (I now use an iPhone) but I find that the less expensive nano works much better for listening to flashcards. The physical touch wheel on the nano makes it much easier to fast forward through questions, read the text lyrics, and mark star-ratings. Also, the iTouch/Phone interface does some wonky things with syncing and smart-list management that makes the cards more difficult to use with these players.