Memorising for Medicine

General Memory Chat
1

Hey guys, so currently I’m on Christmas break and go back to university on the 14th. My experience throughout the first semester has been mostly rote with minor mnemotechnics. I’ve found the link method to be very useful for learning short chains of non-intuitive events like the responses to inflammation or healing by second intention. This has worked quite well and hasn’t been a complex system. However, as medical school proceeds here, the amount of information you both have to keep in mind and increases until it gets to a point that you can’t possibly learn everything - I want to give it a shot anyway.

So what I’m here to do is describe the layout of the semester and my potential method of memorising it all, hoping to get some feedback, and maybe others who have memorised for the long-term can give me advice about organisation.

The semester is split into 4 modules. Cardiovascular, Respiratory and Locomotor (taught sequentially) and HES (taught alongside the 3 systems modules throughout the entire semester). HES is split into another bunch of topics also taught sequentially - experiences of health and illness, health promotion, occupational and environmental health, and global health.

As clinical pharmacology and therapeutics is such a vast field, I intend on giving it its own palace, similar to Yan’s idea, and grouping drugs by therapeutic use. CPT will permeate all the science modules.

Other than that, fields of anatomy, physiology, pathology, etc., all permeate the systems. I plan on structuring things as the information is delivered to use in the curriculum: for example, the cardiovascular system is split into 5 topics: anatomy of CVS, body fluid compartments, cardiac cycle and control of the heartbeat, control of BP, and atherosclerosis. So I’ll be structuring it under those headings. Same style of organisation for every other module.

If anyone has any advice for long-term memorisation and reviewing, I’d be happy to hear it. I’m considering using Anki to structure my palace reviews.

Whats your opinion on the AA-ZZ letter pair image system for memorizing words in med school?
2

I would take a medical term and break it into its parts, noting prefixes and suffices, as well core words
Between now and the next term I would memorize as many of these as possible

While there, take a look at the bottom for “see also”
Combine learning these terms with both the Peg and Memory Palace systems, refining all this into flash cards so by school, these core items will instantly flash into your mind, so you can instantly get to the guts of terms

Medically, you can take a body part and then do a mind map (many are free)…My “tree” would run something like this on say the Pancreas: Where is the pancreas…What does it look like…I would bet going into my study a pancreas will have blood into and out of, so are there any key names and terms, ditto nerves, etc…I can guess where these go in and out there will be problems…There will be, of course, be overall pancreas problems…What are the key treatments and medications…
I would keep drilling down as far as needed, noting certain prefixes, core words, and prefixes

You already know when you see buried in a fancy word “cardi(o)-” that this will pertain to the heart, so next deconstruct the word for prefixes and suffixes…Soon the word is actually simple

1 Like
Substitute teacher looking for quick, fun things to teach kids
3

Thanks for the advice, I’ve found that my current knowledge of Latin and Greek has been very helpful in taking effort off of remembering terminology as most things are actually very intuitively named; I may very well benefit from learning more about these parts. Thank you for the link, it’ll be very useful for me. :slight_smile:

4

The more Latin and Greek you know the better

I just saw here something I am going to try on an easy way of building Flash Cards from web pages

Let me also add, use analogies with your cards or study method–make it K.I.S.S–don’t just copy stuff word for word
For example, I am fascinated with String Theory, so in non mathematical terms as I read about String Theory, I visualize the universes(s) as seething water bugs on speed, because Strings are super small “bugs” of waves…This makes the deeper stuff understandable as I remember my “Water Bugs”
Of course, don’t let your profs see your “water bugs,” for them, act deep, think K.I.S.S :slight_smile:

You might find this helpful, too, Richard Feynman’s study method

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=richard+feynman+study+method

Focus between now and school starting foundation work, because the pros in ANY field do, over and over and over, e.g., etudes in music

5

Great idea for the use of that export method. I want to learn those roots as well, so I created an Anki 2 deck. If anyone wants to save some time, it’s attached below. I also included the CSV file. [scroll down to my other comment for the links]

Update: here’s a link to another Anki deck for English word roots from Greek and Latin.

(The copyright notice is there just because I’m supposed to include a link to the source of the content and to the Creative Commons page if I republish it.)

6

That’s fantastic, Josh. Thank you very much!

7

No problem… :slight_smile:
If there are any other similar lists that people are interested in, just let me know. It only takes a few minutes to create the Anki decks.

8

Josh, I am still working on learning your method with Flash Cards…I have one built with Access, and I have used other sites, but none do what you have accomplished, i.e., pull lists into a Flash Card set without me physically typing too much already done…I applaude you on your discovery, because not even Bing nor the mighty Google could find what you did…You might enjoy this Flash Card set for memorizing playing cards even if you have no interest in memorizing playing cards:

9

Thanks – I will check out the website.
If you can get data into CSV format, you can easily import it into Anki or other flashcard software.

I’m a beginner at making video tutorials, but the first two videos on the YouTube channel go through some methods. I’ll make another tutorial soon on how to use multiple fields in Anki. That’s how I got all four columns of data into the flashcards.

10

Your video was pretty darn good…I watched it four times, then stopped it, downloaded the programs, so I could follow you, and the result worked fine…Used your programs and Excel…It is nice finding a way simply to put lists into Flash Cards, because typing out a list into other Flash Card programs was so tiresome…I am moving into memory of playing cards…I am spending this month of Dec with the focus on one thing: a memory palace holding the first 100 Peg Words, e.g., TiE or Dye for 1 and so on…I want to get so this so the Pegs will ccome instantly to mind…I practice trying to remember tag numbers :slight_smile:
Hype should do well when his school starts back

11

I’ll just be using links to memorise the prefixes/suffixes. I’m also looking for some additional reading to do over Christmas, but I’m not sure what to read up on, to be honest!
As much of a time-waster it seems, Reddit is actually really helpful due to the subreddits like r/science, r/askscience and r/medicine. Let’s me keep up to date with the latest news and learn some additional stuff while browsing.

I definitely do hope I’ll do well. :wink:

12

If you want a hardcore set of medical articles then checkout this:
http://www.consultantlive.com/home
I subscribed telling the publication I was a doctor :slight_smile: since no money was involved, I have a clear conscience
With its email, the publication does quizzes on symptoms in various medical fields
Notice the index to the right
I use the Google Reader to keep a check on RSS feeds

I also can get into my local college web site to go something called Galileo where I find all sorts of journals
Again, you can drill ever deeper into a subject or field

“Etudes” (e.g., prefixes and suffixes) are boring as heck, but the pros in any field do it daily
To stay up on Office stuff such as Word, Excel, I practice such things as keystrokes daily
When I am before a class on Office stuff, I make what I show easy seeming…My “audience” is seeing the tricks without seeing how long it took me to get to a certain point
This is what patients fail to see with a doctor’s visit and why a visit cost so much, to wit, all the “etudes” to get to the point s/he can seem a Dr. House…Being a pro is hard, plus you have to constantly stay on top of the game, which in your game will be the Board Certifications, constantly changing as knowledge piles in
In my case, Office 2013 is coming on the scene, so more study to stay certified in Office

13

If anyone tried to download that .apkg file earlier, it may not have worked. I’ve just fixed it so that clicking on it will start the download.

14

I had no problem yesterday…Learning to use it is a balancing act

15

I’m completely sorry for bumping up this thread. Josh, I can’t seem to find the attached anki deck for medical pre- and suffixes on this page. Any help?

16

Very sorry about that. I’m still working on getting all of the data out of the old site and into the new software. I will import all of it as soon as I can, but in the meantime here are the links to those downloads:

AttachmentSize
medical-roots-suffixes-prefixes.csv 37.8 KB
medical-roots-suffixes-prefixes.apkg 78.67 KB
copyright_medical_roots_flashcards.txt 328 bytes
Medical Mnemonics (Prefixes and Suffixes)
Remember long and complicated words- Website
How to create images fastly for medical terms?