Hemostasis and Blood Clotting

[ProteinTreasure]

I am having a hard time memorizing the blood clotting steps and factors. Any suggestions? Mnemonics?

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[ZagDoc]

Never learned any good mneumonics for the clotting cascade. It was simply one of those painful things in medicine you had to learn over and over till it stuck.

Drawing the cascade multiple times seemed to be the best approach for me.

 

[Divine Furor]

Well, the intrinsic pathway goes like DO YOUR HoMeWorK- 12-11-skipit-8-9-10, and the exstrinsic is 3+7 = 10. At least that's what we had to do in pathobiology.

 

[nogolfinsnow]

We had a heme/onc MD last year who told us that basically you learn it and forget it a lot, but you forget a little less each time, so after you've learned it about 10 times you pretty much have it down.

 

[confettiflyer]

Lots of arrows, + and - signs, and funny shapes for things like activated platelets (and radiating arrows out for what they secrete, like serotonin, thromboxane A2, (-) phospholipids. Also, what helped me is that I drew out the pathway in a different physical orientation on the paper (horizontally, vertically...diagonally, etc...) I tend to write mindlessly from memory if I stick to one, that could help.

Otherwise, everyone else is right...you learn, you forget, you learn, you forget less. Goodluck!

 

[lapelirroja]

As a med tech we learned for intrinsic: 12 11 9 8 10 5 2 1 overall and extrinsic: 7 10 5 2 1. I just memorized those numbers in that order and was fine for drawing out the entire cascade on a final. Just had to remember where to put in the extra arrows, random crap, etc. but that was from my photographic memory.

 

[Guile]

Find a really good diagram of it (clear and concise) and draw it 15 times. Then study something else and draw it several more times from memory. Know which are vitamin K dependent and which are tested by PT and PTT.

You'll know it after that.

 

[thRob]

The clotting cascade was one of those things that I drew out on a dry erase board several times throughout one evening of studying and it stuck pretty well afterwards. Use different colored markers!!

 

[StealthDog]

We learned the Wal-Mart trick for the intrinsic pathway- at Wal-Mart, it's not $12, it's $11.98 (12, 11, 9, 8).