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For IMGs who have lost days to antimicrobials and still mix them up. Free, and done in 90 minutes.
By Dr. Marish Asudani · Published
Watch the free 90-minute antimicrobials video once, at the start. Then do the antimicrobial cards in the FA Foundation Anki and in the NBME Booster pharmacology deck, and read the antimicrobial section of the High-Yield Pharmacology PDF. Do the few groups Osmosis teaches best. Then watch the video again 1 week before your exam.
Read this firstAntimicrobials is the block that breaks people. Dozens of drugs, overlapping coverage, side effects that all blur together. Most students lose 4 or 5 days to it, and still mix up vancomycin and metronidazole on the NBME.
It's free. I made it. It's 90 minutes. Everything else on this page locks that video in.
Watch it once, start to finish, with nothing else open. Not a second resource. Not a third opinion on YouTube. You watch the same video again 1 week before your exam (step 7).
Why 1 video works here: it puts every group side by side, so the drugs stop being 40 separate facts and become a handful of families with a pattern. Cell wall, protein synthesis, DNA, folate. Once you see the families, the side effects and the coverage hang on them.
▶Antimicrobials in under 90 minutes!Your Step 1. Watch it now.Straight after the video, do the antimicrobial cards of the FA Foundation Anki: the pharmacology cards of the Microbiology deck, 53 cards on the First Aid antimicrobial pages (pp. 183–200), 1 high-yield line per card, with the page number on every card.
This is where the video turns into memory. Watching is recognition. Anki is recall, and the exam only asks for recall. Hesitate on a card → open that page in the First Aid Guide, read the line and a couple above and below.
FA Foundation Anki · MicrobiologyThe antimicrobial cards, First Aid pp. 183–200, the page number on every card. Opens straight into the deck.
Open the deck →Then do the antimicrobials in pharmacology from the NBME Booster Anki as well. The Booster's pharmacology deck is every pharmacology question the NBMEs have asked, as flashcards, built from NBME forms 20 to 34 and the Free 120. The antimicrobial cards in it are the drugs the way the NBME actually asks them.
Use Pick & Mix to drill only the antimicrobial cards, and the ones you keep missing. The NBME Booster pharmacology deck → · How the Booster works →
NBME Booster Anki · PharmacologyThe antimicrobials the way the NBME actually asks them. Drill them with Pick & Mix.
Open the deck →Open the High-Yield Pharmacology PDF and go to the antimicrobial section. Read those drugs once. Whatever you couldn't retain from the video and the cards, highlight only those lines.
Those highlighted lines are your memory gaps. Everything you didn't highlight is done, and you don't touch it again. That's your revision list for the second watch, 1 week before your exam.
The PDF is free in the University section of usmlevault.com. The full method behind it: all of pharmacology in 48 hours →
The pharm map names Osmosis as the best resource for 6 antimicrobial groups. They're all inside the 90-minute video already, so this step is for depth, not coverage. On the Vault schedule they come right after the video, in 4 blocks:
| Block | Groups |
|---|---|
| 1 | Vancomycin + metronidazole |
| 2 | Fluoroquinolones + tetracyclines |
| 3 | Anti-tubercular drugs (RIPE + second-line) |
| 4 | TMP-SMX |
The Osmosis videos for these groups are on osmosis.org. If you don't have Osmosis, the 90-minute video already covers all 6 groups.
▶Ninja Nerd · Antibiotic PharmacologyBackup only: 1 long lecture for 1 drug group that still won't stick.Open the First Aid Guide → Microbiology → the antimicrobial pages (what the First Aid Guide is), and do the Test Yourself MCQs. If you can't answer them, you watched. You didn't learn. Any miss → back to that page.
✓First Aid Guide · MicrobiologyThe antimicrobial pages, pp. 183–200, with MCQs on every page.You will not remember antibiotics from 1 watch. Nobody does. Pharmacology is all about spaced repetition: the same material, again, after you've started to forget it.
So here is the whole rule. Watch this video once at the start, then again 1 week before your exam, and you'll be good to go for antimicrobials. On the second watch, keep your highlighted PDF lines open beside it.
In that last week, the NBME Booster pharmacology deck runs again too: where it falls in the final week →
Want a day-by-day schedule that puts the antimicrobials video, the Osmosis blocks and the Anki on the right days? The Vault builds it around your exam date.
Build my schedule →
Pharmacology in 48 hours — the FWRT method for every drug group.
Which Anki deck, when — Foundation vs NBME Booster.
Sketchy Micro in 6 days — the organisms these drugs treat.