How did you study Anatomy? Feeling overwhelmed

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manohman

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Just started anatomy this week and each hour long lecture is taking me 3-4 hours to get through (say nothing of retention). I go through each lecture and keep stopping at points that are not clear to me or that i do not understand and it ends up taking me forever. How do you guys/girls approach lecture?

How did you guys study for anatomy? Did you use your class anki deck? Or just use premade decks like Dope anatomy?

1) Did you use your school anatomy lectures or something else?
2) What was your routine?
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Lectures are a waste of time for me other than picking out some key things to focus my own studying on. The amount of information presented drives me up a wall and I tend to check out when I can’t keep the information from previous slides straight much less what they’ve moved onto next.

writing the actual names of structures out over and over has helped some as well as picturing in my mind their relationship to other structures, which in and of itself requires a lot of work.
 
Schwifty said:
I made Anki cards (image occlusion add-on) from lecture materials and from an anatomy atlas and spent a bunch of time in the anatomy lab, ended up doing really well
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is it better to make your own deck or use a premade?
 
BRS questions umich questions then grays anatomy review questions. With the lecture content watch it at 2x speed the day of the class, then again the weekend of. Don't read the slides, that is a dead end! You have to try to make your learning question based. For lab, the Rohen atlas with live cadavers really helped. I think they have an anki deck now. Questions, questions, questions, and your learning will be much smoother. You don't have to and won't get the questions right, they are like a text book.
 
I really struggled with anatomy at first. It's super overwhelming but I just kept doing anki until it finally started to click. You're not going to feel like you're retaining the information, but slowly it'll just start to make sense. People kept telling me that, and I didn't really believe them, but it is true. Someone at my school made an anki deck based on our anatomy notes, ask around to see if anyone at your school has done the same. But otherwise I know there are a lot of decent pre-made decks. I feel like making your own for anatomy is a waste of time and not beneficial.

I also use KenHub. The quizzes are decent and you can look at multiple views of whatever you're being quizzed on. And it shows which things you are struggling with so I'd watch the actual videos on those things. Not sure if it's worth the cost if you have a good anki deck, but something to check out.
 
If you need something more hands on then just flipping through Anki cards and they're not doing lab at your school, then I strongly recommend getting one of the anatomy coloring books too - they're like $20 on amazon and work really well for those who aren't down with just rote memorization.
There's 2 good versions: The Anatomy Coloring Book, and Netters Anatomy Coloring book. Either is fine, take your pick.

Edit: the UMich cadaver pics are also good for seeing stuff is you don't have your own cadaver/wanna learn how to distinguish different shades of brown (since no real body is ever conveniently color-coded)
 
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anki origin/insertion/innervation/blood bs

go through the tag lists with friends in cadaver lab

do practice questions from your school / umich / brs

ignore trash school lectures and ppt
 
Depends on how you're being tested. For cadaver exams your best bet is to spend time examining the structures in relation to each other in multiple different bodies. Learn to use structures as land marks for other structures and it all starts to reinforce each other. Our written exams were much more focused on anatomy with clinical relevance. BRS anatomy was a good resource for that.

Also your school lectures are probably terrible. You can take the leap of faith and just use outside resources for each system and chances are you'll do better with less time.
 
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Schwifty said:
For anatomy I felt it was better to make my own decks, otherwise I use premade
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Second this, it was easier to make my own deck.

Anatomy lectures are almost always a complete waste of time. You're not going to learn by someone telling you "this is x", you need to keep seeing it over and over and force yourself to recall it. I would ignore anatomy lectures except for any clinical things they mention. Do BRS and Gray's Anatomy questions before exams. Spend time in the lab (I know this may be harder to do now). Just keep forcing yourself to see things.
 
Anybody here studying anatomy with minimal access to the anatomy lab? This semester we only have normal exams for anatomy, no practicals, because we have 1 2-hr pro-section lab a week and no extra access to the anatomy lab for studying.

Ive been taking notes on the lectures, watching youtube videos over and over again, and bought some pre made flashcards
 
mwsapphire said:
Anybody here studying anatomy with minimal access to the anatomy lab? This semester we only have normal exams for anatomy, no practicals, because we have 1 2-hr pro-section lab a week and no extra access to the anatomy lab for studying.

Ive been taking notes on the lectures, watching youtube videos over and over again, and bought some pre made flashcards
Click to expand...

We have very limited access to the lab and still have practicals.
 
Matthew9Thirtyfive said:
We have very limited access to the lab and still have practicals.
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We have just the lab once a week and no access beyond that , so no practicals this semester. We will likely have some anatomy curriculum next year and since we anticipate life going back to normal by then, we will likely have in lab practicals and such
 
mwsapphire said:
We have just the lab once a week and no access beyond that , so no practicals this semester. We will likely have some anatomy curriculum next year and since we anticipate life going back to normal by then, we will likely have in lab practicals and such
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We’re going into the lab twice all module and have a practical at the end. Yay.
 
kraskadva said:
Definitely use the UMich pics to prepare then
sites.google.com

University of Michigan Medical School - BlueLink Images

Copyright to B. Kathleen Alsup and Glenn M. Fox must be maintained with the use of any BlueLink image or resource.
sites.google.com sites.google.com

Acland's is also good
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Our school has a faculty approved cadaver deck. I used that all MS1 and have one of the highest scores in anatomy. Highly recommend cadaver decks.

Also I do love acland.
 
Matthew9Thirtyfive said:
Our school has a faculty approved cadaver deck. I used that all MS1 and have one of the highest scores in anatomy. Highly recommend cadaver decks.
fldoctorgirl said:
Second this, it was easier to make my own deck.

Anatomy lectures are almost always a complete waste of time. You're not going to learn by someone telling you "this is x", you need to keep seeing it over and over and force yourself to recall it. I would ignore anatomy lectures except for any clinical things they mention. Do BRS and Gray's Anatomy questions before exams. Spend time in the lab (I know this may be harder to do now). Just keep forcing yourself to see things.
Click to expand...
Schwifty said:
For anatomy I felt it was better to make my own decks, otherwise I use premade
Click to expand...

Also I do love acland.
Click to expand...
is acland worth it? i got the trial but it didnt seem too helpful but i just started.

also would you guys recommend using one of the premade decks like Dope Anatomy or use one of the pre- made based on the class (from previous students) which the quizes obviously come from.

Im not sure which to use. but i find myself spending so much time adding pictures to the class deck (whichhelps me learn but takes so much time) while Dope Anatomy or other premade decks have pictures so i can just learn from the card itself. but im worried about applicability of these non school decks
 
manohman said:
is acland worth it? i got the trial but it didnt seem too helpful but i just started.

also would you guys recommend using one of the premade decks like Dope Anatomy or use one of the pre- made based on the class (from previous students) which the quizes obviously come from.

Im not sure which to use. but i find myself spending so much time adding pictures to the class deck (whichhelps me learn but takes so much time) while Dope Anatomy or other premade decks have pictures so i can just learn from the card itself. but im worried about applicability of these non school decks
Click to expand...
I would use the decks made by previous students, and making you own cards is time consuming but you'll get better at it, after a while I could make an anatomy deck in no time and making the cards was also kinda like studying the material for me
 
manohman said:
is acland worth it? i got the trial but it didnt seem too helpful but i just started.

also would you guys recommend using one of the premade decks like Dope Anatomy or use one of the pre- made based on the class (from previous students) which the quizes obviously come from.

Im not sure which to use. but i find myself spending so much time adding pictures to the class deck (whichhelps me learn but takes so much time) while Dope Anatomy or other premade decks have pictures so i can just learn from the card itself. but im worried about applicability of these non school decks
Click to expand...

If it doesn’t seem helpful to you, don’t get it. Only use what works. I didn’t buy it. I just got the trial before the exam to get some extra learning in.

I didn’t personally like dope anatomy. Real bodies look nothing like the pretty pictures. You need to see it in cadaver form. I would say use your class premade deck and maybe supplement with umich deck if you need to.
 
Not a very sexy answer, but the anatomy lab was open on the weekend, or maybe only Saturdays, and I would go there in the morning to review. We did anatomy in groups so some of my group would meet up. I seemed to get quite a bit out of that instead of being in front of a book trying to memorize.

There also seemed to be some very quietly spoken strategy in anatomy where students and professors knew which cadavers had the best examples of x, y, z, and one would coincidentally find that certain finding on that certain cadaver when test time came.
 
Is it wrong that I'm only a few weeks into anatomy and I've already seriously entered the acceptance phase of having to remediate next summer (bye bye research block). I have my first exam, written in practical in a few days and I honestly feel like I've learned and know nothing. It just doesn't stick. Every day they throw like 70 new terms to memorize at you. Tried every resource suggested and only in the last few days have found things that are somewhat effective, but I've literally spent like 3 hours outside of lab time in the lab and I had no idea most of the time what I was looking at, so I stopped going.

Should I feel guilty about surrendering so easily? This is my second block and I did fine in the first block (biochem).
 
idkmed said:
Is it wrong that I'm only a few weeks into anatomy and I've already seriously entered the acceptance phase of having to remediate next summer (bye bye research block). I have my first exam, written in practical in a few days and I honestly feel like I've learned and know nothing. It just doesn't stick. Every day they throw like 70 new terms to memorize at you. Tried every resource suggested and only in the last few days have found things that are somewhat effective, but I've literally spent like 3 hours outside of lab time in the lab and I had no idea most of the time what I was looking at, so I stopped going.

Should I feel guilty about surrendering so easily? This is my second block and I did fine in the first block (biochem).
Click to expand...
Don't give up. I felt similarly in my first anatomy block, in fact I posted a thread on here saying basically exactly what you are: I'm going to fail, there's no way I'm not going to fail. I had accepted it, like you, and was already planning how I would have to stay at school to remediate over the summer. Guess what, though? People replied and told me to get it together, that I could pass if I put in the work. And.....surprise, I did. I know it sucks. First semester of M1, and specifically my first anatomy block, was the hardest time of med school for me. I felt like there was no way I was going to succeed. But, I did. And most people do. Don't succumb to the feeling that you can't do anything to affect the outcome: you CAN. It's cheesy, but your future is in your hands and you can do this! Countless students have done it before you, and you were accepted which makes you no less intelligent or capable than anyone else. You got this! Keep pushing. It gets better.
 
idkmed said:
Is it wrong that I'm only a few weeks into anatomy and I've already seriously entered the acceptance phase of having to remediate next summer (bye bye research block). I have my first exam, written in practical in a few days and I honestly feel like I've learned and know nothing. It just doesn't stick. Every day they throw like 70 new terms to memorize at you. Tried every resource suggested and only in the last few days have found things that are somewhat effective, but I've literally spent like 3 hours outside of lab time in the lab and I had no idea most of the time what I was looking at, so I stopped going.

Should I feel guilty about surrendering so easily? This is my second block and I did fine in the first block (biochem).
Click to expand...
Don't guilt trip yourself, but also don't give up. You can do it.

And I've said this 1000 times before, but I'll say it again:
If you are struggling with remembering anatomy terms, look up the latin roots for them!
All anatomy terms are latin for either 1) exactly where they are, 2) exactly what they do, 3) combo of 1&2, or 4) a weirdly descriptive term that makes sense if you squint really hard and maybe do acid (a small subset fortunately)
So once you understand what the names are naming, all anatomy tests are basically just latin vocab recall
 
idkmed said:
Is it wrong that I'm only a few weeks into anatomy and I've already seriously entered the acceptance phase of having to remediate next summer (bye bye research block). I have my first exam, written in practical in a few days and I honestly feel like I've learned and know nothing. It just doesn't stick. Every day they throw like 70 new terms to memorize at you. Tried every resource suggested and only in the last few days have found things that are somewhat effective, but I've literally spent like 3 hours outside of lab time in the lab and I had no idea most of the time what I was looking at, so I stopped going.

Should I feel guilty about surrendering so easily? This is my second block and I did fine in the first block (biochem).
Click to expand...
yes you should feel bad about giving up. Part of this journey is feeling like the odds are stacked against you, yet calming yourself and focusing on small things you can control and working on that. Keep on working. You were accepted to medical school so you have the ability to complete medical school.
Find out what works and grind through.
 
idkmed said:
Is it wrong that I'm only a few weeks into anatomy and I've already seriously entered the acceptance phase of having to remediate next summer (bye bye research block). I have my first exam, written in practical in a few days and I honestly feel like I've learned and know nothing. It just doesn't stick. Every day they throw like 70 new terms to memorize at you. Tried every resource suggested and only in the last few days have found things that are somewhat effective, but I've literally spent like 3 hours outside of lab time in the lab and I had no idea most of the time what I was looking at, so I stopped going.

Should I feel guilty about surrendering so easily? This is my second block and I did fine in the first block (biochem).
Click to expand...

Yes, you should feel guilty. It’s normal to feel guilty about giving up, especially when you view it as giving in easily. But don’t beat yourself up about it. It’s a normal response to have.

You got accepted to med school. That wasn’t a fluke. You can do this. You have to find what works for you and do that. Going to the lab was mostly worthless for me. I did almost all of my studying with a cadaver deck on anki and have one of, if not the highest grade in anatomy in my class. There is no one right way to study anatomy, but you are obviously capable of doing it as long as you find your way.
 
Matthew9Thirtyfive said:
Yes, you should feel guilty. It’s normal to feel guilty about giving up, especially when you view it as giving in easily. But don’t beat yourself up about it. It’s a normal response to have.

You got accepted to med school. That wasn’t a fluke. You can do this. You have to find what works for you and do that. Going to the lab was mostly worthless for me. I did almost all of my studying with a cadaver deck on anki and have one of, if not the highest grade in anatomy in my class. There is no one right way to study anatomy, but you are obviously capable of doing it as long as you find your way.
Click to expand...
DId you make your own cards or get them somewhere? I bought portable anatomy cards ( The Anatomy on the go Cards) taken from the Atlas but how do you get a cadaver deck?
 
mwsapphire said:
DId you make your own cards or get them somewhere? I bought portable anatomy cards ( The Anatomy on the go Cards) taken from the Atlas but how do you get a cadaver deck?
Click to expand...


you can also purchase Rohen’s flashcards.
 
mwsapphire said:
DId you make your own cards or get them somewhere? I bought portable anatomy cards ( The Anatomy on the go Cards) taken from the Atlas but how do you get a cadaver deck?
Click to expand...

My school has an approved deck made by the TAs and our cadavers. But umich has a cadaver deck available to anyone.
 
I found the straight netters slide image occlusion was helpful, and has frankly stuck with me for the large part .
 
ANKI, ANKI, and more ANKI. All day. Everyday. Twice on Sundays. Don't even go to lecture. This is the lunacy that is medical education lulz.
 
TwoHighways said:
ANKI, ANKI, and more ANKI. All day. Everyday. Twice on Sundays. Don't even go to lecture. This is the lunacy that is medical education lulz.
Click to expand...
how long does it take you to go through each card? i just started using anki and man its taking me forever to get through each card. like i could spend a whole day doing 100 cards, and i have!
 
manohman said:
how long does it take you to go through each card? i just started using anki and man its taking me forever to get through each card. like i could spend a whole day doing 100 cards, and i have!
Click to expand...

I average 10 seconds a card. If I don't know it in 10 seconds, I don't know it well enough and need to see it again anyway. You shouldn't be spending all day on anki. That's not using it efficiently.
 
manohman said:
how long does it take you to go through each card? i just started using anki and man its taking me forever to get through each card. like i could spend a whole day doing 100 cards, and i have!
Click to expand...

Please explain what you mean about taking a whole day to go through 100 cards? Are you making these cards? What kind of cards are they? Maybe we can help you troubleshoot your issue, because I’ve never heard of anyone taking more than a minute or so per card.
 
pagingdoctormom said:
Please explain what you mean about taking a whole day to go through 100 cards? Are you making these cards? What kind of cards are they? Maybe we can help you troubleshoot your issue, because I’ve never heard of anyone taking more than a minute or so per card.
Click to expand...
so i spend a lot of time editing anki cards (i add to a premade deck from my upperclassmen) that takes me at least a few minutes per card to google the info/pictures.

when i review i take at least 30 seconds per card? if you dont have the answer immediately should you just move on and repeat the card later (again option)
 
manohman said:
so i spend a lot of time editing anki cards (i add to a premade deck from my upperclassmen) that takes me at least a few minutes per card to google the info/pictures.

when i review i take at least 30 seconds per card? if you dont have the answer immediately should you just move on and repeat the card later (again option)
Click to expand...

If you don’t know it within 10-15 seconds just hit again because you don’t know it that well and should see it again anyway.
 
manohman said:
so i spend a lot of time editing anki cards (i add to a premade deck from my upperclassmen) that takes me at least a few minutes per card to google the info/pictures.

when i review i take at least 30 seconds per card? if you dont have the answer immediately should you just move on and repeat the card later (again option)
Click to expand...

Why are you googling the info/pictures...for the answer? Anki is a memorization/recall tool, using it for your primary learning will take you forever and your learning will be a bunch of disjointed facts.

If you’re adding to a premade deck are you using the browse function to see the entire deck and just adding cards that aren’t already there?

I would recommend looking at your lecture powerpoints, watching lecture, reading the dissector, etc to get a good overview, then start anki. If you don’t know the answer when you see it, hit the spacebar, look at the answer, try to memorize it, then hit ‘again’. This should take 10-15 sec max.
 
Thanks everyone for your replies. I am still putting in 15+ hour days, so I haven't completely given up but still am looking at my realistic chances. I know I am not studying this the right way. I just need to find a good way to tackle it. I just can't figure out for each lesson/dissection if I should be looking at the muscles first, bones, etc...I just don't see the logical flow of anatomy. If it was taught over 12-16 weeks I think I'd be fine, but the rate it comes means I need to rethink my study strategy.
 
idkmed said:
Thanks everyone for your replies. I am still putting in 15+ hour days, so I haven't completely given up but still am looking at my realistic chances. I know I am not studying this the right way. I just need to find a good way to tackle it. I just can't figure out for each lesson/dissection if I should be looking at the muscles first, bones, etc...I just don't see the logical flow of anatomy. If it was taught over 12-16 weeks I think I'd be fine, but the rate it comes means I need to rethink my study strategy.
Click to expand...

Not sure if this works with your learning style/the way your course is taught, but one small thing that helped me (especially for muscles) was to think about things based on movements first. If I bend my knee, what muscles are involved? which bones are they pulling on, and in which direction? I did a lot of weird dancing and kicking while learning anatomy (and even sometimes during exams) :banana:

for dissections, i think i tended to think more in layers/steps of dissection procedure. First I cut through X, in order to find Y, which is attached to Z. so I didn't really divide bones/muscles like that. My class had longitudinal anatomy though, so we had a lot more time to process things than it sounds like you do
 
I used old-school methods with hand written notes adapted from the lectures in a more or less outline format. I would make sure to nail down the high yield information from each lecture and then add in specifics along the way. I also usually drew out a few things, for example, the blood supply of the Abdomen. Drawing helps reinforces certain patterns as well. @manohman

Anki seems to be the way of life for most medical students. I never could mix with it (dreadfully boring) except for practice questions once in a while. You can do amazing without it if you’re looking for another method OP, or if it’s not working.
 
M1 here, just dropping by to say that the hand and forearm have me wanting to pull my hair out. The rest hasn’t been so bad. Anki and the dissector have pretty much been my lifeline. Review questions after I have a good grasp on the material has been good too.
 
Another thing that helped me was learning things in relation to each other. So rather than just memorizing that this gray smudge is the putamen, I learned it as a bigger picture. I would take something that was really easy to spot and remember (like the lateral ventricle) and then use that as the starting point like a map. Like okay this structure is right next to the lateral ventricle. This other one is next to that and looks like a blank space. Then there’s this structure, etc etc.

Then when we did our practicals and I looked at the tagged structure, I would find my starting point and then just walk through my “map” to the tag.
 
TelemarketingEnigma said:
Not sure if this works with your learning style/the way your course is taught, but one small thing that helped me (especially for muscles) was to think about things based on movements first. If I bend my knee, what muscles are involved? which bones are they pulling on, and in which direction? I did a lot of weird dancing and kicking while learning anatomy (and even sometimes during exams) :banana:

for dissections, i think i tended to think more in layers/steps of dissection procedure. First I cut through X, in order to find Y, which is attached to Z. so I didn't really divide bones/muscles like that. My class had longitudinal anatomy though, so we had a lot more time to process things than it sounds like you do
Click to expand...

That's an interesting approach. I think I realized, after putting in 14 hours + a day for 2 weeks that the problem is that I was not "compartmentalizing" the information. So I'd have a list of muscles for a section and would write them out, their innervation, blood supply, and action. Rather than looking at the muscles as their own compartment (both anatomically and for convenience of learning) and recognizing all muscles in this group are innervated by X with these exceptions. Then building on top of that: well actually while that is true, the X nerve actually divides here and these muscles in that compartment are innervated by A branch and these are by B branch. Same concept with the blood supply and building an idea of the structural arrangement like that.

Rather, I was just going off the list of terms we had to learn, not really connecting the dots. It was like putting together a 1000 piece puzzle without a picture to reference.
 
Rohen atlas and Achland Videos if your school offers them, which they should cause it's fire.
 
manohman said:
Just started anatomy this week and each hour long lecture is taking me 3-4 hours to get through (say nothing of retention). I go through each lecture and keep stopping at points that are not clear to me or that i do not understand and it ends up taking me forever. How do you guys/girls approach lecture?

How did you guys study for anatomy? Did you use your class anki deck? Or just use premade decks like Dope anatomy?

1) Did you use your school anatomy lectures or something else?
2) What was your routine?
Click to expand...
Don't take notes and don't stop on videos. Just go through the video first pass. If necessary read the accompanying text. Then ANKI.
 
kraskadva said:
Don't guilt trip yourself, but also don't give up. You can do it.

And I've said this 1000 times before, but I'll say it again:
If you are struggling with remembering anatomy terms, look up the latin roots for them!
All anatomy terms are latin for either 1) exactly where they are, 2) exactly what they do, 3) combo of 1&2, or 4) a weirdly descriptive term that makes sense if you squint really hard and maybe do acid (a small subset fortunately)
So once you understand what the names are naming, all anatomy tests are basically just latin vocab recall
Click to expand...
Yes, those Latin and Greek roots help for sure. I will always remember the openings in the skull. Fancy scientific-sounding names for simple things: foramen rotundum (round hole), foramen ovale (oval hole), foramen spinosum (spiny hole), foramen magnum (big hole)!
 
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