Anatomy Study Tips

LatinGuitarrist said:

Guys, i will be taking Human Anatomy as undergrad. I was wondering if you guys could share some study tips on this course. I know med school anatomy is way more intense and more depth, but I am sure study tips/techniques can be applied to the regular college anatomy, so if you could please share some tips, resources I would appreciate that. Thanks in advance..

Ed

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I found drawing things out helped a lot - and I do not mean photographic perfect pictures - schematics were very helpful especially for nerves and arteries

the course director at my school helped me out with this tip. while you're studying, break the body into smaller sections, and for each section, list 5 things that would likely be tagged on a practical exam. if you do this, then you start to see the body in this way, and when you approach a body on a practical exam, you can pick out the region and already have narrowed down the number of things that can be tagged.

additionally, after you make your list of "fives" go back and try to think of at least one major fact about each structure. now you have the most common tags for the practical exam and one fact (i.e. written question) about each structure. once you're comfortable with your initial list of fives, go back and add five more to each list.

i found this to be an extremely useful way to organize my thoughts and it kept me focused because i was constantly moving on to new things by only doing five structures at a time.

this may not work for everyone, but it made anatomy much much easier for me.

Memorizing everything really helped me out, and I'm only sorta-halfway kidding. Sit down with your Netter (hopefully that's what you're using, but they might not expect you to know everything in Netter) and stare at one of the pages just looking for obvious landmarks. Since many of the pics repeat themselves for a particular region with some variation or another, move to the next one and try to pick up on some more structures. When you're comfortable with that, go through and highlight what you know.

Mnemonics like whoa. I had a doctor tell me he had mnemonics to remember his mnemonics. It wasn't that bad, but still.

I've heard of the 5s thing. Didn't use it myself, but grouping things definitely helps. The head/neck was harder because it didn't lend itself to grouping as easily.

You should be fine. My undergrad had BAA classes that would be like "Lower Leg" and they would learn it over the course of a semester. We did it in a week. Actually, less than that, since there was Thanksgiving.

Enjoy! Anatomy rocks.

Anatomy is pure memorization - memorize as much as you can. The only reasoning part is, for example this: the muscle that lies underneath the acromion is the muscle that is most likely to be impinged due to excessive shoulder abduction. But, you still have to memorize what that muscle is and where it inserts, etc. Don't get me started on the brachial plexus. Just had an anatomy exam today, 3/4 way through. Hate it.

i wasn't doing so hot in anatomy initially b/c i was studying for it the same way i was doing with other classes. that is, just reading the book and memorizing it directly. for the last section i tried a different approach, i just parked my ass in lab and made sure i was able to find EVERYTHING that they talked about (within reason, i didn't search for lymph nodes or anything). when they said that the brachial plexus passed over one of the scalenes - i don't remember which one anymore - i made sure to verify that on the cadavers. it took me a good amount of time to study this way, but i ended up literally acing the final because of this. i think that being able to remember searching for a particular artery or nerve helped me recall it much more vividly than any amt of time staring at Netter's could have done.

Learn which stuctures run together, and learn landmark structures so that you can orient yourself. They love to tag things that have distinct relationships to other stuctures, such as a nerve that loops around an artery, or a vein that crosses a particular artery, etc. I also agree with the suggestion to learn taggable structures in each area of the body separately.

Netter flashcards >>>>>>> the atlas.

Seriously, they own. $35 on amazon.com.

Fewer things on each card/plate, grouped according to structure type with all the information you would ever need to know / relationships / clinical correlates on the back of each one. Seriously, I love them. I smashed head and neck anatomy because of them.

Look at material different ways....I would start by looking at the lecture notes (twice), then go to Michigan website and answer clinical questions, look over BRS, read the clinical correlation boxes in the Moore's texbook. Once i started taking this approach, my grades shot up significantly.

Rohen's anatomy atlas.
It has pictures of disected cadavars as opposed to drawings (found in Netter's). You get a lot of practice identifying structures on different cadavers similar to what you see on the practical. Especially usefull right before the practical when they close to gross lab to set up.

ChocolateKiss said:

Learn which stuctures run together, and learn landmark structures so that you can orient yourself. They love to tag things that have distinct relationships to other stuctures, such as a nerve that loops around an artery, or a vein that crosses a particular artery, etc. I also agree with the suggestion to learn taggable structures in each area of the body separately.

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This is so true... I mean, the way they tag stuff, they HAVE to give you clues as to what the thing is... seriously, ask yourself where the structure is, where it's coming from, and where it's going, it's all about orienting yourself when you get to a cadaver. Certain things that have standard mnemonics (army over navy) and will be tagged... other vessels have "classic" positions-- eg. auriculotemporal nerve splits to go around the middle meningeal artery, etc... Other things are named sort of logically, "Piriformis" is actually kind of shaped like a pear, etc.

I don't know if you'll be doing a dissection or be responsible for a practical examination on a cadaver, but if you are I highly recommend aclands dvd atlas. They are especially useful before a dissection session, so you know what you are looking for instead of blindly digging thru fat and fascia. Also, the cadaver is fresh and the dissections are perfect, which you will never see in your own lab so its an amazing way to review things. Its also very helpful for 3D concepts that are difficult to grasp in lab because you cant magically rotate your cadaver like they do in the video, it really helped me with the larynx, the inguinal canal and the pelvis.