Microbiology is not one subject to be conquered. It is nine finite lists, each one attached to a system you are already studying.
Studied as a single block, micro has no edges. You open the chart, scan the whole thing, and an hour disappears without a single organism actually revised — because nothing on the page told you where to stop.
Split by organ system, it has edges everywhere. Neurology is 31 organisms. Dermatology is 7. When you finish the list, the list is finished, and "done" becomes a fact rather than a feeling.
There is a second reason, and it is the better one. You already study Step 1 system by system. Doing the neurology organisms in the same week as neurology pathology means the bug and the disease get encoded together — which is exactly how the exam asks about them.
Each page carries the organisms that matter for that system — whichever classes apply to it — grouped, numbered, and followed by the WRWRT method applied to one organism in full so you know what each step looks like before you repeat it.
| System | Organisms | List |
|---|---|---|
| Neurology | 31 | micro-cns → |
| Immunology | 28 | micro-immuno → |
| Gastrointestinal | 24 | micro-git → |
| Cardiovascular | 18 | micro-cvs → |
| Respiratory | 15 | micro-respi → |
| Reproductive | 14 | micro-repro → |
| Renal | 11 | micro-renal → |
| Dermatology | 7 | micro-derm → |
| Musculoskeletal + Dermatology | 13 | micro-msk → |
All nine lists are columns of the same source chart. If you want the whole grid on one screen — searchable, filterable by the organism classes relevant to that system — that is the SystemWise Micro chart.
Same five steps, every organism, in order. The order is the point — each step only works because of the one before it.
| Step | What it does | |
|---|---|---|
| W | Watch, 1x, no notes | Walk the memory palace without stopping at every door |
| R | Recall the story, chronologically, in your head | The only step that builds retrieval — and the one everyone skips |
| W | Watch again — only the gaps, 1.5–1.75x | Your failed recall just mapped where the time should go |
| R | Read the Sketchy Micro PDF for those organisms | Converts the image into sentences, because the exam asks in words |
| T | Test with the Test Yourself MCQs in the First Aid Guide for those exact organisms | Tells you the truth about the previous four |
If you want it as a full day-by-day run rather than system by system, that is the six-day Sketchy Micro protocol — same method, different container.
Watch, recall, watch again, read — all four of those feel productive and prove nothing. The T is the only step that tells you the truth. And it is not you writing your own questions.
It is the First Aid Guide: all 646 pages of First Aid, decoded page by page, with 2,534 page-by-page MCQs built into them. Every page ends in Test Yourself — questions on that page, not that chapter.
If you cannot answer the page, you did not learn the page. You watched a cartoon. The T is what converts twenty hours of Sketchy into marks — and skipping it is the single most common reason a student “finished micro” and still misses the organism on the form.
Want to see one before you commit? Here is exactly what one page looks like, in full.
Organisms without the drugs that kill them is half a block. The antimicrobials page runs the same shape — a finite group list and a method — as FWRT rather than WRWRT: the 6 antimicrobial drug groups →
It belongs to the wider pharm block, which is built on the same stratification logic: complete pharmacology in 48 hours.