In response to josh.
Essentially I don’t really do memory journeys since things I am memorizing do not really require order (except algorithms but they are small enough to fit into one scene).
First what I usually do is find an area in one of my palaces (a wall, table, chair, desk, bed, some sort of storage unit such as a drawer and the like) and place my image of that disease there. That is the starting point. I occasionally forget where I put it (laziness and its just so much info and concentration can be difficult sometimes) but the end goal is to have the image stick in my head by using self monitored spaced repetition (I do not really use anki even though it is great).
So I start with making an image of what the disease unit I am trying to study is (lets say wilsons disease) something most med students have heard of but it has enough hard to remember information correlated with it that its a good example.
I have this disease placed in one of the nursing stations at a hospital I worked at prior to med school. My memory HOOK is wilson the volleyball off of castaway and also tom hanks. I picture them in the middle of my location just standing there to start. Everything that is going on in the image revolves around them and the end goal is when I hear wilsons disease is to recreate wilson and tom hanks in my head after which everything else should rematerialize when I need to recall it. I will break it down as follows
a black cat is my key code for the number 13 (I only have images for numbers up to 100 or so since thats all I really need in regards to medicine)
Wilsons disease is on chromosome 13- black cat playing with the wilson ball
mutation in ATP B7 gene- ATP= batteries, B= a bee, 7= boomerang. a battery powered B toy throwing a boomerang next to wilson
copper builds up in liver, and basal ganglia (mostly putamen) So tom hanks has a copper liver and copper putters in his brain (a putter is my image for the putamen)
copper build up causes cirrhosis= this goes without saying but lets make that copper liver nodular
the copper build up in the putamen causes psychotic like symptoms (relatively to patient’s baseline), irritability, and parkinson like issues- So essentially I picture Tom Hanks with swirly crazy eyes, while he’s looking all over the place all distracted and has cogwheels taped to all his joints while he walks around shuffling.
Labs- low cerumoplasmin- My picture for low is usually a RED pet cage with a down arrow door. So I have flubber in this cage (flubber just sounds like cerumoplasmin doesn’t it)?
high free copper (a ton of pennies floating around wilson the ball, and high urinary copper. a bunch of pennies in a piss puddle by tom hanks.
MOST copper is excreted by bile (so I put a gallbladder in a garbage can that wilson the ball is sitting on top of)
Tx- penicillamine- a bunch of pencils in a mine
trientine- three ents (either from lord of the rings, or warcraft 3)
as you can see this isn’t everything about wilsons but its enough to get most questions right and to diagnose it.
memory palaces are highly specific and honestly notable figures from movies and video games have provided my with a nearly unlimited supply of images to use.
I also use sketchy medical since they basically do the job for you. but the only issue is sometimes its better to personalize your memory palace to yourself and some of their images are messy. But I do mentally steal their images and use in my own mental palaces or “image capture” as I like to call them.