3. A day with Vademecum: ten minutes at a time

Vademecum is built for the gaps in a clinical day. Nothing counts down and nothing is owed. Each of these is useful on its own in a few minutes.

On rounds: flag it

A question comes up and there is no time to chase it. Press Flag a gap (⌘K on the Mac), write a line ("When do I stop anticoagulation before an LP?"), and save it (⌘S). The flag goes on the Improvement Map and is weighed when Vademecum chooses what to show you next.

Between patients: Today

Today opens on:

• one thing to recall: a flashcard from the topic that needs it most. Think of the answer, show it, then say how it went. Below it is the suggested next step for that topic;
• one encyclopedia page to review;
• new literature from the topics you watch;
• new teaching cases from the series you follow.

Each section opens and closes. I reviewed this page moves on to the next page.

Five minutes: flashcards

Flashcards shows a card's front. Think of the answer, then reveal the back, which cites the page it came from. Answer Again or Got it:

• Got it brings the card back in a day, then three days, then longer each time.
• Again brings it back in ten minutes.

Cards that are due come first, then up to twenty new cards a day. Topics you flagged or got wrong are weighted up.

Ten minutes: board questions

Tutor asks questions in the ABIM format: a vignette, five options, one best answer. Your answer is checked on the Mac against the key, and the explanation cites the page. The order is shuffled and nothing repeats until you have seen every question.

On the drive home: talk it through

The Socratic tutor asks open questions about one page: the differential, the treatment options, the knowledge underneath. It doesn't give you the answer. When you finish, it names the gaps it heard, and each gap becomes a flag.

Use it by voice from ChatGPT or Claude on the phone (see the next tutorial), or typed in the web app.

Or listen: the podcast

Podcast writes a two-host episode from your own pages, and the Mac voices it. Ask for one in your own words ("the approach to hyponatraemia") and watch the progress bar. Play it at up to 2× speed. Once you have listened, an episode goes to the archive and its audio is deleted. Up to ten unheard episodes are kept, and they play on the phone too.

Anytime: write it down

Notes holds your own notebooks: one for a rotation, a subject, or questions you keep coming back to. Notes can sit inside notes, and you write them in Markdown. They are the same on the Mac and the phone. On the Mac each is also a Markdown file under notes/ in your source folder, so you can edit it in any editor. Mark a note Use as a source and it is built into pages, questions and cards like any other file.