Advice on how to pass Anatomy?

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PS2summerdays

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Hey everyone. I know there are some threads on anatomy class here, but I wanted to make a new one because my anatomy class is theme based. That is, we have dissection labs for every theme. Our current theme is musco-skeletal system, so the anatomy is pretty heavy.

Anyway, I'm having A LOT of trouble with this. It seems like a good portion of our class understands things really well and gets how things connect, but several others and myself are lost. This is probably because we have never had exposure to this before, unlike many other students. It also doesn't help that my group's cadaver is very bulky and obese, which makes it impossible to isolate or locate nerves/veins/etc. obscured by fat...

Our practical is about 30 IDs and I'm stressing out because everything just looks the same to me. Does anyone have any general advice on how to do well? Should I just brute force memorize everything's function for the more in-depth questions? Thank you all. About 2 weeks until the exam, so I'm really getting nervous.
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Brute force memorization, no other way around it. But have comfort in knowing that med students all over the country are feeling the exact same way


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coldcase331 said:
Brute force memorization, no other way around it. But have comfort in knowing that med students all over the country are feeling the exact same way
Click to expand...

Thanks. I just really don't want to fail. I will try my best and more.
 
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Go into lab with others and look at their cadavers/have them teach you. NetAnatomy is also great if your school has a subscription! IMO the best way to learn is to go in and physically see/feel the muscle, vein, artery you're looking for.
 
Hey friend, anatomy is rough. Especially for people who never had exposure to this previously (present company included). I can not stress Net Anatomy, UMICH, Netter, Grant's dissector (15th edition is fine), and most importantly your class notes.

As you prepare/study, always think about relationships. How does this X relate to Y which is a part of Z. Build upon each other. You can not study X in isolation. Once you have mastered the unit (usually 1 week before exam), then you can draw out how a nerve courses through a region.

Post-lab. I really recommend you read over Grant's dissector. It is concise and gives you wave tops. Also, each lab is about 3-4 pages. Then, look at Net Anatomy. Your school should have a subscription. I would rely on Netter only if Net anatomy and my course notes could not give me a good angle. So far I have been doing good on the practicals. As far as practicals go, I have been relying exclusively on Net Anatomy. Give it about 2-3 passes. First pass, read every description in its entirety. Second pass, just turn on the labels and breeze right through it.

We are region based, though I imagine the same principles hold true.

Edit: People are flakes. A lot of people put on a show that they aren't struggling or that they get it. True colors always come out post-exam. It is a never ending cycle :/
 
If your problem is not being able to tell the different muscles apart, try learning from an anatomy book first (netters) and then look at online cadaveric photos of the same muscles to give you an idea of how they should look. Then, look at your real-life example, and if you really know your stuff you'll be able to make a confident guess at what muscle/artery this is.

Repeated exposure helps a lot. My school mixes in pathologies of the relevant anatomic areas to help highlight certain parts of the anatomy
 
One thing that helped me was to think about why each structure is named what it is. They aren't all just random words, they all have an etymology that makes at least a little bit of sense.

Also, go into lab with others, but when you're there make sure you actually quiz each other. I was a TA for some of the anatomy when I was a M4, and I was always surprised how many times you would see a group of 4-5 people and it would just be one person with a tag sheet pointing everything out. You need to have one person point to something, and the other identify it. Do this over and over again on different bodies.
 
I forgot to mention, I am extremely grateful for Jane Doe donating her body to be used as a cadeaver. Thank you ma'am. That being said, she was rather large. I understand your frustration on cutting away layers of fascia and fat to see tiny vessels and muscles. Yes, those structures really are that tiny. First unit, we spent soooo much time outside of lab stripping away the unnecessary layers. Second unit is a bit easier, not because you don't care as much, rather you understand how things should look like and you become much more efficient.

Also, thank you OP for your honesty and reflection on Medical School. I read your earlier posts. I am glad you are deciding to stick out Medical School for a while. Granted, I am only 3 months in as an M1. The first two months I absolutely felt that I didn't belong here. I couldn't believe there were so many smarter people and I felt like an impostor. A day didn't go by where I didn't think about quitting. Then the more and more I talked to my friends and reached out to fellow classmates, they felt the same. We just took our second unit exams yesterday (Anatomy and Histology/Embryo), and after seeing my scores, I finally said to myself, Thank you God we got this. I do belong here. You would be surprised as to how many people feel the same way you do. In talking with my classmates, they are really open in what they are going through.

Lastly, I know you didn't ask about this, but I would really stress the written part of anatomy too. That really caught me by surprise. The amount of detail required, and second/third order effects. A great way to view the material taught is to always ask yourself, "why is this important? why are they teaching me this? how else can i see this material?" Before the exam, I would take a BRS and if possible, a Gray's anatomy review test, to gauge how much I get this material.

Best of luck and thank you for reaching out. The SDN community is here with you 🙂
 
Our school is very heavy in anatomy and a lot of my friends felt the same way as you so don't feel alone! We have a clinical anatomy lecture, and classic anatomy lab. If you also have this I would recommend taking your material from lecture and studying it IN THE LAB after hours. This is what I do, and I feel it splits my study time in half because I am locating structures on my cadaver that are shown in powerpoints from lecture so its like a 2 for 1 plus your lab knowledge will far exceed what is expected of you IMO. This is what I do and it has worked really well.
 
It's also my first time taking anatomy, but I scored really high on my schools practical. We're basically following gray's for students, so we did thorax/back.

I did a majority of my studying through anki's image occlusion with netter's, although I was making/using the deck when the class started. I also went into the lab a couple times before taking the test and randomly chose 2-3 bodies and ran through our structure list. Other than that, I didn't spend much time explicitly studying for the practical because anki would continually test me.

For me, if i could picture it in my netters book in my head, it was easier to reason out where it is on a random cadaver. Also watch for where the nerve/artery starts and ends to see which one it is.
 
Forgot to also mention that doing Gray's anatomy review is great, although it is area based, so you may have more trouble finding your specific muscles. Umich is also area based, and as a heads up, their written exams (the ones I've taken) are much easier than my school's written exam.

Also, if you can picture where muscles attach on bones, you should be able to reason out which way they pull (because they always pull) and their function. Not sure how much of this you already know, but reminding myself of this every so often and thinking back to lifting weights always helps! And remember to start using the medical defn's like medially rotate, adduct, abduct, etc.

Example: pecs and lats attach at the same point in the humerus, so they both adduct and medially, or internally, rotate the humerus, so you have to consider their origins with their functions.
 
nebuchadnezzarII said:
Hey everyone. I know there are some threads on anatomy class here, but I wanted to make a new one because my anatomy class is theme based. That is, we have dissection labs for every theme. Our current theme is musco-skeletal system, so the anatomy is pretty heavy.

Anyway, I'm having A LOT of trouble with this. It seems like a good portion of our class understands things really well and gets how things connect, but several others and myself are lost. This is probably because we have never had exposure to this before, unlike many other students. It also doesn't help that my group's cadaver is very bulky and obese, which makes it impossible to isolate or locate nerves/veins/etc. obscured by fat...

Our practical is about 30 IDs and I'm stressing out because everything just looks the same to me. Does anyone have any general advice on how to do well? Should I just brute force memorize everything's function for the more in-depth questions? Thank you all. About 2 weeks until the exam, so I'm really getting nervous.
Click to expand...

This describes exactly how I felt. I also had zero anatomy exposure prior to this, coming from a non-biology related background. We also started with the musculoskeletal system, so our first exam was ~1 month worth of material. I was completely overwhelmed and never felt comfortable, even on test day. But I did what I could and just kept chipping away at things. Despite feeling totally lost in comparison with my classmates, I passed the first exam with good wiggle room. And felt much better on the second (thorax was a bit easier for me), improving my overall score by ~10 points. So feeling lost early on is not hopeless. Granted, I feel hopelessly lost again in abdomen and pelvis currently.

At my school, our practical is 70 ID's (including radiology) and 80 questions on the written. Contrary to my belief at first, the lab practical is much more of a sure shot than the written portion since you either know it or you don't. They will pick the best examples and "Netterize" the cadavers (just make sure you look at different bodies and know Netter's cold if you can). If you can't ID something right away when you're practicing, move on and see if you can find it on a different body later. There's a lot of atypical anatomy and destroyed structures. Use things you can ID easily (like pronator teres in the forearm, the median nerve of the brachial plexus, the sartorius muscle in the thigh) as reference points. Use BRS and Grays to practice for the written. Michigan is good for review as you go, but their questions are pretty basic and did not prepare me well for the first written exam. The Michigan anatomy practicals are good practice, but a lot of times it's hard to orient yourself. Brut memorization is unavoidable, but try to understand patterns if you can. Particularly with the innervation/vasculature.
 
This class absolutely sucks ball. I'm comfortably passing this class but I feel your pain. I had zero anatomy exposure to this also. A lot of medical students have taken anatomy before. Don't worry about your first semester grades bc there are still students with major advantages than you there. However, I've heard that by the start of 2nd semester and so forth, the minimal advantages go away fast. Just focus on getting at least Bs and sharpening your organizational and studying techniques for this 1st semester.
 
nebuchadnezzarII said:
Hey everyone. I know there are some threads on anatomy class here, but I wanted to make a new one because my anatomy class is theme based. That is, we have dissection labs for every theme. Our current theme is musco-skeletal system, so the anatomy is pretty heavy.

Anyway, I'm having A LOT of trouble with this. It seems like a good portion of our class understands things really well and gets how things connect, but several others and myself are lost. This is probably because we have never had exposure to this before, unlike many other students. It also doesn't help that my group's cadaver is very bulky and obese, which makes it impossible to isolate or locate nerves/veins/etc. obscured by fat...

Our practical is about 30 IDs and I'm stressing out because everything just looks the same to me. Does anyone have any general advice on how to do well? Should I just brute force memorize everything's function for the more in-depth questions? Thank you all. About 2 weeks until the exam, so I'm really getting nervous.
Click to expand...

Your first job is to change that defeatist mentality. Just because you haven't had anatomy doesn't mean you are lower than others. My friend who had no exposure in undergrad honored while I ta'd anatomy and was in the bottom 50th overall. No one from undergrad in my opinion has an edge. A good analogy would for undergrad vs med school is that in UG human biology classes they teach you that a phone book is alphabetically sorted with commercial pages at the end, etc. In medical school you're sitting there memorizing the names and numbers of the phone book. The concepts take a minute to understand, the details take weeks.

As for not understanding how things connect, what makes you think you're weak in this? Other students may just be studying a **** ton more than you (@FootFetish). If you really feel lost, always take a minute to understand new terminology. That's a huge source of confusion in anatomy if you ignore words like cutaneous, peduncle, pedicle...also definitions are very important in anatomy and for medical school in general. Don't try to be overconfident and think you know them. Always look things up to double check. Also take a minute before delving into each origin/action/etc. to understand the general function of a group of muscles.

As for your cadaver, I'm sorry that happened but it's nbd. Just find stuff on other cadavers and you'll be good.

Now with the practical I was terrible at them. My best advice is no book (with the unlikely exception of possibly rohen's) is a substitute for open lab. Just go in there. If your so clueless that you wouldn't be able to do anything like me, you'll be at the mercy of those who are good at ID'ing. Patiently wait for them to point things out to you and pay close attention. Also ask them how they id'ed stuff. A general trend you'll find is that they look for relationships like you're actually taught. Instead of looking for the internal thoracic to be pointing up and have a certain pattern like it is in Netter's they look for landmarks to find the subclavian and just simply count to find the second branch off of it.

GL, anatomy was tough for me but it got loads better afterwards!


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I hate anything that forces me to be inefficient so naturally I abhor anatomy. This is probably not the best way to go about things, but this is the most efficient way for me to learn this course:

- I let my lab crew do all the dissecting while I study the module. There is nothing I hate more than standing around for 3 hours to shave fat off a couple structures I could have learned in 10 minutes. They seem eager to get in there and cut, so I let them. While they blow time shaving fat (our cadaver is also obese), I read through the module and try to learn as much as I can. I help out at the end when I know the structures and most things are cleaned/identifiable. If they didn't finish the lab, I go in by myself later and find whatever they couldn't, which keeps them happy with me and allows me to learn without fighting for table space with stressed out gunners.

- Essential Anatomy. This is amazing for musculoskeletal anatomy and visualizing neurovasculature. I paid like $30 for it and I wish I bought it sooner. It allows you to remove each layer of muscle and will tell you where each muscle originates/inserts, where it gets innervation from, blood supply, etc. This helped me visualize things in 3D and things started clicking. This also helped me see where nerves and arteries are coming from/going because sometimes cropped 2D images just don't cut it (especially for the circumflex arteries).

- Anki image occlusion when you have to.

- Grey's Review (green Grey's) because it has a ton of questions and going through them will clarify things and make them stick.

- Lippincotts Emrbyo + Anatomy Q&A because my professors seem to lift **** straight from this book. The explanations are pretty good too and I think going through them helps solidify concepts.
 
I had a podcast about this a few weeks back. I won't paste everything in here since it's pretty long but just the first few tips:
  1. Learn to love Latin. Well, not just Latin but all the nomenclature and etymology of medicine. It’s impossible to learn all the prefixes, roots, and suffixes while you’re in medical school, but if you are struggling with remembering something, take the time to Google the etymology. You may discover something that helps it stick, and it will probably come in helpful for other words as well. Taenia means “ribbon” – and that helps you remember that the taenia coli is a ribbon around the colon, and that Taenia worms are ribbon-like. Ampulla comes from the Greek for “bottle or jug” and you’ll see that again and again – Ampulla of Vater, in the duodenum, the ear – and always referring to a dilated portion of a tube, like a bottle or jug would be dilated. Sometimes the etymology tells you exactly what a structure does. For example, levator labii superioris alaeque nasi tells you that the muscle lifts the upper lip and nasal alae.
  2. Use repetition with variation. You’ll probably have to go over something like the branches of the external carotid multiple times to memorize it, but to truly reinforce it you need to introduce variation into the memorization process. Recite the branches backwards. Use visual, auditory, and tactile learning. Teach it to a friend. Identify the structures that each branch supplies. Draw it from scratch on a white board.
  3. Practice with a study group, on multiple cadavers. Study groups are good for all areas of medicine, but with anatomy they can be especially good resources for mnemonics and clarifications of anatomical relationships you didn’t even realize you were confused about. Studying on multiple cadavers teaches you to ignore normal variants and focus on the universal features of anatomical structures.
There's also a pdf I created with some of my favorite anatomy resources, links and stuff. Anatomy is like boot camp - the quintessential, unifying MD experience. I hope you can find a way to love it!
 
Bookmarked this last year when I took anatomy. Thank God, it's over until Step
 
Quiz yourself.

What is that? boom. What is the blood supply? boom. Nerve supply? boom.

Really hit those self quizzes - either on an anatomy app, atlas, or flash cards. Once you memorize it, go see it on the body and quiz in person.
 
I completely blew off anatomy and still got an A in it. I mostly didn't even study for lecture exams and just made sure to do well on the practicals. How to do well on practicals? A few days before the practical go down to the cadaver lab for 5 to 6 hours at a time and just see everything on the tag list 3 or 4 times each time you're down there.

How to identify the stuff on the tag list? Either go to the cadaver lab with people who put in the work that you didn't and know their stuff, or if you're a friendless loser, go down to the lab by yourself and tag along with the large number of people who are inevitably always in the lab during the days preceding the lab exam. If you spend 6 hours a day in lab for 3 or 4 days before the exam you will learn to identify the structures by osmosis unless you're a complete halfwit.
 
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