WELCOME DOCTOR!
To your best resource for ophthalmology/optometry flashcards!

On this site you’ll find the most complete and extensive (well … it’s getting there) collection of online study flashcards available for the field of ophthalmology. These questions are all high-yield and will help you perform well on your written boards and in-service exams (such as the OKAP).

You’ll find questions here on the phacomatosis, white-dot-syndromes, corneal dystrophies, and even some of those optics questions you love! Everything is here for your review. Online for free!

PREPARE THE RIGHT WAY!
Ophthalmology can be pretty esoteric with a lot of basic science that is all fair game on a board exam.   The challenge for test-WRITERS is to compose challenging, but answerable questions that some examinees will miss. YOUR job as the test-TAKER is to get those questions correct without killing yourself learning useless minutia. We’ve tried to make the content of these flashcards reflect this balance:

• Not too easy! Simple questions, something that all residents and doctors know, and is not worth review
• Not too hard! Some knowledge is too specific, difficult to review, and low-yield. We’ve kept out most of the chromosome locations and gene locus questions for this reason!

You may not agree on our question choices. In fact, you may think we’ve “flipped our lids” and picked ridiculously hard questions. Fortunately, there’s the star-rating system …

STAR POWER
At the bottom of each question, you’ll see a Star rating. You can rate the difficulty of every question (with 5-stars being the hardest) and see how other visitors have rated the same question. This helps us evaluate the relevance of the question, but more importantly for you:

• Gives you a clue as to what other ophthalmology doctors find difficult
• Allows you masochists to review “only the hardest questions”
• The stars look cool

And if you think the star power is hot, you’ll find the Hot Topics mode absolutely sizzling …

DON’T STUDY HARD … STUDY SMART
When it comes down to quiz time, certain subjects seem to be more “testable” than others. When you are getting near the end of your studies, you may want to hone in on the classic topics for each specialty. For example, with cornea you’ll need to know your corneal dystrophies inside out. Other hot topics include:

• Retina - White Dot syndromes
• Pediatrics - Phacomatosis
• Glaucoma - Drugs
• Optics - Prisms
• External Disease - Stains and Culture medium
• All - Crazy Mneumonics

The bulk of the flashcards reflect these high-yield topics. To review a specific highyield topic you can review our “hot-topic page.” Here’ we’ve sorted the cards by these subjects and other categories you might not have thought of, such as “atropine versus pilocarpine” and “A versus V patterns.” 

FIND IT FAST!
One of the benefits of using this site, instead of a large textbook, is that you can search FAST! Just type a word in the search box to the left, and every single flashcard containing that word will appear for your learning pleasure!

• Want a listing of every flashcard containing the word LASIK?  Type it in! 
• How about everything on VKH?  Ditto! 

This works well if you’re a great speller. But sometimes you might not know the exact spelling of a phrase (ex. feldurstruktur fibers). In these situations, you might want to check out the  …

MEGA-INDEX!
Not sure how to spell rhegmatogenous? Not a problem: you can also scroll through all the keywords available from the master index page. This index page works just like a textbook index, but much more convenient as you can click on any of the terms, and every associated flashcard will appear for you to choose.

YOU’RE OPINION COUNTS!
Find something wrong with one of the flashcards? Did we misspell fundus albipunctatus again? Then leave a comment! Every question has a feedback form underneath where you can leave suggestions, ideas for related questions, or a helpful mnemonic you think future visitors might enjoy.

If you’d like to maintain your privacy, you can make up a name and email address for these comments. However, by using a real email address you’ll be able to subscribe to future comments on that page … in case someone responds to YOUR comment!

But if you really want to be clandestine on this site, you may want to check out the site’s secret weapon:

THE “DOUBLE-SECRET-PROBATION” HIDDEN MODE!
With the “normal mode” for this website, you’ll see the answer immediately below each question. This works fine for solo studying … but what if you are in a group and want to give everyone time to come up with an answer? You can use the “hidden mode.”

If you click the “hidden” button at the top-right of the page (next to the attractive site logo) you’ll convert the entire site into “hidden-answer mode.” Each answer will then appear further down the webpage, requiring you to scroll down before you can see it.

This is especially useful for group studying: instead of preparing a PowerPoint, just use this site in hidden mode to randomly study as a group!

BUY THE BOOK?
This website is provided free and is maintained with the proceeds from sale of the paper book. So please, if you use the site and find it helpful, consider purchasing the paper version for offline review. 

As super-fantastic as this website may seem at first blush, there’s nothing quite as satisfying as holding a hardback book in your hands. Leafing through pages gives you a sense of satisfaction, destiny fulfilled, and a connection with the great literary giants in ophthalmic history.

The paper version of OphthoDeck won’t actually give you any of these sensations, but it’s still a good purchase. A paper text is ultimately easier to read and is portable. You will also find it easier to “mark” hard questions that you’d like to review in the future.

Ophthalmology residents don’t make a lot of money, so we’re printing the book through a print-on-demand provider to make it inexpensive (especially when compared to the alternatives). The book correlates directly with this website and complements other study sources (like board-review books) that you’ll need to “ace” your exam.

Thanks for visiting and good luck on your studies. Ophthalmology is a wonderful field and I hope you find this site useful!

Tim Root M.D.