Anatomy: what sized bites should I be chewin' on?

[LiamNeesons]

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I'm getting ready to start M1, and we have anatomy/histology only for the first eight weeks. I'm looking at a very thick anatomy atlas on my desk. Obviously, I'm not going to retain everything in it. My question is: how do you guys suggest approaching anatomy? Will the lectures/dissector focus on the high yield structures allowing me to use the atlas as a reference, or will I really have to learn every muscle, origin, insertion, innervation, blood supply, etc. + all of the clinically relevant information. My first instinct is to use the image occlusion function on anki to essentially make flash cards out of every image in lecture, but I feel like if I attempt to learn everything... I won't learn anything. We won't have many exams so there's not much room for trial and error. Thanks so much guys.

 

[cbrons]

Your entire anatomy lecture and dissection lab is 8 weeks only?

 

[evilbooyaa]

Talk to upperclassmen at your school (usually at an orientation event prior to M1 starting). I cannot comment on only 8 weeks of anatomy, as our school took it across the entire first year. Yes, the bodies resembled beef jerky by the end of it.

 

[LiamNeesons]

Yep, eight weeks.

 

[HLxDrummer]

That's a pretty short time frame!

Basically in my class the teacher gave a PPT with images from some atlases and then some text with additional info and told us to memorize it. Then we went to lab and tried to find the stuff we were just told to memorize.

So basically, just memorize everything they show you/is in a review book.

If you class is short they may not expect you to memorize a lot of the detail and may focus on high yield step 1 stuff.

 

[LiamNeesons]

That's a pretty short time frame!

Basically in my class the teacher gave a PPT with images from some atlases and then some text with additional info and told us to memorize it. Then we went to lab and tried to find the stuff we were just told to memorize.

So basically, just memorize everything they show you/is in a review book.

If you class is short they may not expect you to memorize a lot of the detail and may focus on high yield step 1 stuff.

I hope you're right. That would be amazing.

 

[Erek94]

I would suggest starting very general in your first run through the notes.( Ex. Wrist flexors originate from the medial epicondyle of the humerus vs extensors which originate off the lateral epicondyle.) Then hash out the details in the second and third run through. For the muscles I found it more relevant to focus on action and innervation. Lab will bring the origin and insertions to light. Memorize your lab check list for the practical a few days before. Also, find people who like to be quizzed during lab time and quiz eachother on structures and lecture stuff. Good luck!

 

[bluv1212]

Brs anatomy

 

[vayntraubinator]

I'm guessing miami... You're gonna be in that lab every hour of the day and studying nearly every hour of the day.


Good luck amigo!!

 

[FrkyBgStok]

8 weeks seems brutal, but you will learn that a lot of the innervations are the same and the hardest groups of muscles often have names that tell you exactly where most of them originate and insert (forearms and hands for example).

 

[Bamfu]

I'm guessing miami... You're gonna be in that lab every hour of the day and studying nearly every hour of the day.


Good luck amigo!!

I'm guessing UAMS. That's where I'm headed with the same schedule and same concerns 😳 I do believe we're guinea pigs on the 8 week run.

 

[Law2Doc]

...
If you class is short they may not expect you to memorize a lot of the detail and may focus on high yield step 1 stuff.

just a word of caution, Anatomy is a course you are going to use throughout residency, and you will never have more time to sit down and learn it than you will in med school. If you don't learn it well, it will often come back to haunt you later. Short term memory cram and dump isn't your friend for this material even if it gets you through Step 1.

 

[golgiapparatus88]

Check to see if your school has a subscription to Acland anatomy. The videos are a great way to acclimate yourself to the topic as well as to review the night before an exam. Seriously...use them.

 

[FIREitUP]

just a word of caution, Anatomy is a course you are going to use throughout residency, and you will never have more time to sit down and learn it than you will in med school. If you don't learn it well, it will often come back to haunt you later. Short term memory cram and dump isn't your friend for this material even if it gets you through Step 1.

he's right, we all need to know that the internal intercostal muscles are used in inspiration and that the gracilis muscle is innervated by the obturator nerve.

 

[golgiapparatus88]

he's right, we all need to know that the internal intercostal muscles are used in inspiration and that the gracilis muscle is innervated by the obturator nerve.

I thought it was the external intercostals. I always remembered it as "I = E"

Inspiration = external intercostals, and internal intercostals = expiration

 

[GadRads]

he's right, we all need to know that the internal intercostal muscles are used in inspiration and that the gracilis muscle is innervated by the obturator nerve.

I see what you did there

You don't know that the long buccal nerve runs underneath the temporalis tendon? You must be a bad doctor.

I have forgotten nearly half of gross anatomy trivia. It was interesting, but it was torture. Physio was much, much better.

 

[FIREitUP]

I thought it was the external intercostals. I always remembered it as "I = E"

Inspiration = external intercostals, and internal intercostals = expiration

dude you're correct! i always get that confused. i'm a failure at medicine and i should be punished. let this be a lesson to everyone regarding the importance of the internal intercostals in doing things involved in breathing and stuff.

honestly, anatomy is not unimportant, it's just the emphasis on minutiae is so ridiculous and it's not presented in a clinical context. I always hate it when people post crap talking about how you shouldn't slack in anatomy. those people have obviously forgotten about anatomy practicals with butchered bodies mangled by over-eager wannabe surgeons tagging obscure crap in weird angles.

 

[Anastomoses]

Check to see if your school has a subscription to Acland anatomy. The videos are a great way to acclimate yourself to the topic as well as to review the night before an exam. Seriously...use them.

I wanted to say this yesterday but I was being lazy. Acland's Anatomy. Start now!

 

[Anastomoses]

I see what you did there

You don't know that the long buccal nerve runs underneath the temporalis tendon? You must be a bad doctor.

yeah, he wasn't doing what you thought he was doing. Because one fact was correct and the other wrong.

honestly, anatomy is not unimportant, it's just the emphasis on minutiae is so ridiculous and it's not presented in a clinical context. I always hate it when people post crap talking about how you shouldn't slack in anatomy. those people have obviously forgotten about anatomy practicals with butchered bodies mangled by over-eager wannabe surgeons tagging obscure crap in weird angles.

I suspect you're half right...I doubt anatomy is actually going to give us the returns for what we put into it...but that's how medicine works. We're all studying systems and things we might barely encounter depending on our specialty. Yet...the ease and comfort of being able to close your eyes and visualize and zoom in with your mind into whatever part of the body you need to see is undoubtedly going to be beneficial to studying so many other areas. --> Less confusion long term, less struggle to integrate concepts later.

That's my take anyway.

 

[FIREitUP]

yeah, he wasn't doing what you thought he was doing. Because one fact was correct and the other wrong.



I suspect you're half right...I doubt anatomy is actually going to give us the returns for what we put into it...but that's how medicine works. We're all studying systems and things we might barely encounter depending on our specialty. Yet...the ease and comfort of being able to close your eyes and visualize and zoom in with your mind into whatever part of the body you need to see is undoubtedly going to be beneficial to studying so many other areas. --> Less confusion long term, less struggle to integrate concepts later.

That's my take anyway.

yes, medicine is not what i would call efficient; but I would emphasize that anatomy is one of the subjects that is most demanding and lacks a distinct clinical focus, whereas other disciplines do. i find it difficult to justify all that time spent, and furthermore, the human body is much different when it is embalmed and preserved vs. actually living.

 

[Law2Doc]

dude you're correct! i always get that confused. i'm a failure at medicine and i should be punished. let this be a lesson to everyone regarding the importance of the internal intercostals in doing things involved in breathing and stuff.

honestly, anatomy is not unimportant, it's just the emphasis on minutiae is so ridiculous and it's not presented in a clinical context. I always hate it when people post crap talking about how you shouldn't slack in anatomy. those people have obviously forgotten about anatomy practicals with butchered bodies mangled by over-eager wannabe surgeons tagging obscure crap in weird angles.

A med student is in a singularly bad position to judge what is minutia and what is going to be needed, especially during first year when one hasn't even picked a specialty yet. In some specialties, you absolutely might be dealing with minutia like this pretty regularly. And kicking yourself for not learning it when you actually had the time.

 

[golgiapparatus88]

A med student is in a singularly bad position to judge what is minutia and what is going to be needed, especially during first year when one hasn't even picked a specialty yet. In some specialties, you absolutely might be dealing with minutia like this pretty regularly. And kicking yourself for not learning it when you actually had the time.

Agreed. I think the easiest way to discover what is clinically relevant is to try and find practice problems. Remembering a random fact suddenly becomes important when you realize what happens if a surgeon accidentally nicks a vessel or nerve (or organ). The blue boxes in the Clinically Oriented Anatomy textbook are great at showing that kind of stuff.

 

[Ismet]

I'm getting ready to start M1, and we have anatomy/histology only for the first eight weeks. I'm looking at a very thick anatomy atlas on my desk. Obviously, I'm not going to retain everything in it. My question is: how do you guys suggest approaching anatomy? Will the lectures/dissector focus on the high yield structures allowing me to use the atlas as a reference, or will I really have to learn every muscle, origin, insertion, innervation, blood supply, etc. + all of the clinically relevant information. My first instinct is to use the image occlusion function on anki to essentially make flash cards out of every image in lecture, but I feel like if I attempt to learn everything... I won't learn anything. We won't have many exams so there's not much room for trial and error. Thanks so much guys.

Our anatomy class was 7 weeks. It's really not that bad, and it has actually been my favorite course so far. Lecture and lab every day, with the lab focusing on the parts of the body that we covered in lecture over the previous few days. 3 exams and 3 practicals: one on thorax/abdomen, one on head/neck, and one on extremities (3rd exam was semi-cumulative).

If you are looking at it now, it looks extremely daunting, so you shouldn't look at it until you actually start. Take it day by day, and that will be the "chunks" to chew on. The key with anatomy is repetition, and of course, seeing it in lab. Also, I usually hate studying with people, but I found that studying with a few friends made anatomy much more bearable, especially when we would quiz each other in the lab before practicals.

You'll be fine. Stay on top of the lectures and don't fall behind, but it's definitely manageable.

 

[FIREitUP]

A med student is in a singularly bad position to judge what is minutia and what is going to be needed, especially during first year when one hasn't even picked a specialty yet. In some specialties, you absolutely might be dealing with minutia like this pretty regularly. And kicking yourself for not learning it when you actually had the time.

It seems like medical schools are equally clueless, because I think we can both agree that much of what's learned in a medical school anatomy class is frivolous not clinically oriented. furthermore, much of the anatomy is learned in a vacuum is essentially purged after that practical where you had to identify the left circumflex on an upside-down heart. just saying.

 

[evilbooyaa]

It seems like medical schools are equally clueless, because I think we can both agree that much of what's learned in a medical school anatomy class is frivolous not clinically oriented. furthermore, much of the anatomy is learned in a vacuum is essentially purged after that practical where you had to identify the left circumflex on an upside-down heart. just saying.

I think this is an important statement. Having anatomy with a more clinical focus (like how FA focuses on nerve damage and which symptoms a patient will have w/ certain nerve impingement) is much more high yield than memorizing stuff. Showing a video of a surgery like a cholecystectomy, showcasing each vessel as it looks in the live human body as it's isolated, protected, and eventually ligated, would allow for greater appreciation of why anatomy (and landmarks) are important.

 

[Law2Doc]

It seems like medical schools are equally clueless, because I think we can both agree that much of what's learned in a medical school anatomy class is frivolous not clinically oriented. furthermore, much of the anatomy is learned in a vacuum is essentially purged after that practical where you had to identify the left circumflex on an upside-down heart. just saying.

I'm not saying it's taught the best way, just that it's something a lot of residents in retrospect wished they had cemented into their brains better, because you do need to know a whole lot of that information in many specialties..

 

[GadRads]

I'm not saying it's taught the best way, just that it's something a lot of residents in retrospect wished they had cemented into their brains better, because you do need to know a whole lot of that information in many specialties..

It's usually common for high-achieving people who work hard to think studying more would've better "cemented" data into their brains. I spent a lot of time trying to master the anatomy of my favorite organ (the heart). I knew all the vessels and their branches, and could identify them in my sleep. It's been 4 months and I will still need a review.

One of my anatomy professors (he knows LOTS of anatomy), for a moment, forgot a key passenger of the skull's foramen ovale. I, at one point, routinely wrote Java and C++ codes; now I have to review syntax before writing anything. I think the best advice is--do your best, and review as needed. Most likely, your resident friends almost did their best, and additional effort would've been low-yield in the long term.

 

[Donald Juan]

will I really have to learn every muscle, origin, insertion, innervation, blood supply, etc. + all of the clinically relevant information.

Yes, you will have to learn a lot more than you think you have to learn now. Welcome to med school.

I recommend you don't try to waste too much time making your own flash cards. Go buy Netter's flash cards, use the quizzes on U Michigan's website, and go to the lab and study with friends! Flash cards for anatomy only have limited use because after about two rounds you are just memorizing those pictures (whether they're drawn or actual pictures, it doesn't matter).

Responding to the off topic discussion on what med students should be learning: I'm in no position to comment on what is right/wrong about the curriculum. My class had a ton of clinical correlations, and even if I think they teach too much minutiae, it doesn't really make a damn bit of difference. For right now I'm gonna learn what my curriculum demands me to and I can argue that I learned the high yield stuff all I want, it won't change my B to and A. In 20 years after I've been practicing I'll have an opinion over what was relevant and what was useless.

 

[FIREitUP]

I'm not saying it's taught the best way, just that it's something a lot of residents in retrospect wished they had cemented into their brains better, because you do need to know a whole lot of that information in many specialties..

but that my point exactly. cement what? there's literally an infinite amount of information you can sit down and focus on but just as you mentioned, how do you, as a first year medical student, know what is important and what isn't? my school didn't help me with this and I sat there staring at an atlas, overwhelmed and confused. honestly, i would recommend to the OP to try to focus on anatomy presented in a clinical context like blue boxes in Moores and those in Grant's dissector. this way you gain an understanding first before trying to memorize origins, insertions, blood supply, etc.

 

[Law2Doc]

but that my point exactly. cement what? there's literally an infinite amount of information you can sit down and focus on but just as you mentioned, how do you, as a first year medical student, know what is important and what isn't? my school didn't help me with this and I sat there staring at an atlas, overwhelmed and confused. honestly, i would recommend to the OP to try to focus on anatomy presented in a clinical context like blue boxes in Moores and those in Grant's dissector. this way you gain an understanding first before trying to memorize origins, insertions, blood supply, etc.

it's substantial, but not "infinite" (just seems that way when you start) and it all has the potential to be important to you. And you will really truly never have the kind of time you had as a med student once you get to residency. There are quite a few classes in the first year of med school you legitimately might sit and wonder, "why do I really need to know this". From the perspective of someone a bit further down the road -- Anatomy shouldn't be one of these.