How did you study anatomy?

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EMDO2018 said:
We have anatomy the first 6 or 8 weeks, then no more.
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I am doing a pre-matriculation gross anatomy. We cover everything, except for the head and part of the neck, in 6 weeks. It's actually less than 6 weeks if you factor in the orientation day, 4th of July, and exam review days. It's pretty fast pace, but doable.
 
Ibn Alnafis MD said:
I am doing a pre-matriculation gross anatomy. We cover everything, except for the head and part of the neck, in 6 weeks. It's actually less than 6 weeks if you factor in the orientation day, 4th of July, and exam review days. It's pretty fast pace, but doable.
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I never understand school offering pre-matriculation courses. Just another way to make money and freak students and gunners out
 
Can anybody who had a dissecting anatomy class (with a cadaver, not animals) in undergrad comment on the difference between med and undergrad? We had a retired physician teaching who kept in contact for advice with the previous instructor who teaches anatomy at Louisville Med. She always said the tests were pretty similar.

Our school gives us anatomy in the second block with a longitudinal skills class and a medical information class. Our blocks are all 8 weeks long. Sooo, yeah. Not looking forward to anatomy in 8 weeks.
 
Pisiform said:
I never understand school offering pre-matriculation courses. Just another way to make money and freak students and gunners out
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The course at my school is offered at no additional cost to selected students.
 
The key is practice questions. I did not do enough before my Anatomy final, and I failed. I did well over 300 (I counted) before the retake, and I passed easily.

Coincidence? I think not!
 
Arkangeloid said:
BRS has quite a few, and that's the best source ofc. There's another book called "Pre-Test: Anatomy" that's a bit dated, but very robust. Aside from that, you can look stuff up online I guess.
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Nice thing about anatomy is not much has changed in our bodies as of late. A book from 15 years ago still has merits and you won't need to wonder "gee, I wonder if the left recurrent still loops around the aorta -- or if that changed since this book came out?".
 
Anatomy was my favorite course during M1, and I'm not a surgery gunner. There is hope. You might like it. The human body is pretty damn amazing in my opinion. I also had a really solid course that was clinically relevant.
 
So which one would you guys say is better: having a 6-8 week anatomy block (to get it done and over with early) or having anatomy 2-3 times a week for a semester? So if a school does the latter, what is the exam/quiz schedule like (I know this probably varies from school to school, but I still want to know what your school's is like 🙂)?
 
smarts1 said:
So which one would you guys say is better: having a 6-8 week anatomy block (to get it done and over with early) or having anatomy 2-3 times a week for a semester? So if a school does the latter, what is the exam/quiz schedule like (I know this probably varies from school to school, but I still want to know what your school's is like 🙂)?
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Depends on your retention capability. That's the most important thing.
 
Arkangeloid said:
BRS has quite a few, and that's the best source ofc. There's another book called "Pre-Test: Anatomy" that's a bit dated, but very robust. Aside from that, you can look stuff up online I guess.
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Pretest books are always good for NBME shelf exam questions.
 
smarts1 said:
So which one would you guys say is better: having a 6-8 week anatomy block (to get it done and over with early) or having anatomy 2-3 times a week for a semester? So if a school does the latter, what is the exam/quiz schedule like (I know this probably varies from school to school, but I still want to know what your school's is like 🙂)?
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Anatomy was integrated within the block exams throughout the course and we had a practical anatomy exam at the end of every block with cadaver identification, picture ID, and radiology ID. We had online collaborative quizzes after every lab that were very helpful as they often were similar to the questions on the block exams which usually involved clinical correlation questions.
 
I spent a LOT of time in the lab with my study group. Memorizing is one thing but really understanding anatomy is another. Get a good study group and pimp each other on the structures, functions, and especially clinical features and pictures. Spend time not just on your donor (cadaver) but also on other group's donors. We were provided with Netter's atlas but I also purchased Rohen's but nothing really beats hands on learning for me.
(caveat: getting a good study group is hard especially during your first year. People just simply learn differently. Some look at pimping as insulting. I was fortunate enough to be assigned with two other great colleagues who have become my friends as well.)
 
As terrible as this may sound... there is really no magic formula. Anatomy can be learnt either by having photographic memory or by reviewing a million times until you finally remember what your professors want you to know. As someone who has hated that class and tried everything to make it easier in order to somehow pass it, I can assure you that if you dislike rote memorisation, physiology and even pathology will be much, much easier than anatomy.
So, just grab an atlas (Netter, Rohen, whichever), a book (whether it's Gray's, BRS, or whatever) and, if you can find them, past papers from previous years and get through it as many times as you can and get it done with 🙂
 
To echo boe, get used to pimping. It's the best way to master a large body of knowledge. It's not a bad thing. Don't take arguing personally. You can learn A LOT by arguing if you keep a level head and are respectful. Every med student needs a wingman/woman to bring up those annoying topics that you tried to forget but really need to retain.
 
It's also key to get your info organized in a way that makes sense to you and that helps you to learn. I put all my muscles, innervations, origins, insertions, and actions into a filemaker pro database and it allows me to sort and search entries by each category. That really helped me to quiz myself and learn things using different approaches. Some people like just excel sheets to quiz themselves. Others make decks of flash cards. Whatever works best for you.
 
O Grady said:
Where did you get practice questions?
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Grays Clinical Review.

I swear by this, even though it's less commonly recommended. There's about 200 questions per section with paragraph explanations of each question. Amazing, amazing resource. You will crush anatomy if you do a bunch before the test.

As others said, BRS has solid questions as well.
 
I'm more curious as to how Anatomy will start out. Will there be gunners at the table who just cant wait to boss people around and carve up the cadaver? Will everybody feel they have something to prove and thus try to outshine everybody else? I've never been the type to gun and I'm more reserved and introverted, I don't know how Ill like it.
 
EMDO2018 said:
I'm more curious as to how Anatomy will start out. Will there be gunners at the table who just cant wait to boss people around and carve up the cadaver? Will everybody feel they have something to prove and thus try to outshine everybody else? I've never been the type to gun and I'm more reserved and introverted, I don't know how Ill like it.
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It will be to your advantage to have these gunners wanting to do all the cutting. You'll get to sit at the corner of the table and read through Netter's while they are busy "honing their surgical skills" peeling off endless fascia. Whenever there's an important landmark or a structure being revealed, just take a peak at it and then get back to studying. The thrill of dissection gets old very quickly and it becomes a very tedious task.

In my lab group (5 of us), there are no gunners, but there are a couple of individuals that prefer to do most of the cutting since it helps them learn the material better. The rest of us take the task of quizzing each other.
 
Arkangeloid said:
The key is practice questions. I did not do enough before my Anatomy final, and I failed. I did well over 300 (I counted) before the retake, and I passed easily.

Coincidence? I think not!
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Same, I was failing or nearly failing exams left and right. Then I started just doing questions and I was doing better.
All old exams from previous years were available to us, and the professors often re-used questions with just minor variation. So, just doing/understanding questions from past exams, and memorizing the relevant material brought up in the tests was enough to pass.

It made studying way more efficient too, because you knew what you needed to know and what would be tested.
 
EMDO2018 said:
I'm more curious as to how Anatomy will start out. Will there be gunners at the table who just cant wait to boss people around and carve up the cadaver? Will everybody feel they have something to prove and thus try to outshine everybody else? I've never been the type to gun and I'm more reserved and introverted, I don't know how Ill like it.
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What? Since when does wanting to do the dissection make you a "gunner"? I don't see how anyone could be trying to prove anything in anatomy lab, since you're not actually being graded on how well you do your dissection. Believe it or not, most people in medical school are actually very nice, chill people. I don't understand so many people seem to think medical school is going to be some hostile place with everyone only looking out for themselves. I have news for you, it's not, and most people are actually pleasant to work with. If you find that's not the case, you might actually be the problem.

None of that was meant to be directed at you, EMDO, it's more of just a blanket statement.
 
Arkangeloid said:
The key is practice questions. I did not do enough before my Anatomy final, and I failed. I did well over 300 (I counted) before the retake, and I passed easily.

Coincidence? I think not!
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It's bc you learn more from questions and reading explanations than reading the same line of text over, and over, and over.
 
I don't believe the 6-8 week courses go into nearly the same depth as a full length course. It's just not possible in my opinion. Yeah, it's doable if you go over all the high yield stuff, but I seriously doubt you're covering the specifics seen in a normal course in that time span.
 
PL198 said:
I don't believe the 6-8 week courses go into nearly the same depth as a full length course. It's just not possible in my opinion. Yeah, it's doable if you go over all the high yield stuff, but I seriously doubt you're covering the specifics seen in a normal course in that time span.
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I definitely think it's possible. At my school, we had anatomy over a ~3 month period, but we were also taking other courses at the same time, so we only had anatomy a few times a week. So I could see it being shortened to 6-8 weeks if anatomy is all you're required to do during that time period.
 
PL198 said:
I don't believe the 6-8 week courses go into nearly the same depth as a full length course. It's just not possible in my opinion. Yeah, it's doable if you go over all the high yield stuff, but I seriously doubt you're covering the specifics seen in a normal course in that time span.
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Yes we do. I have looked at the ppt slides for the full-length semester, and they are the same, with few modifications here and there.

It's a lot to cover, but you need to figure out what's worth your time to focus on. For example, if we are covering the arterial branches of the internal iliac artery, I'm not going to waste time going over every variation that exists. I'm just going to learn the main branches, their traveling paths, and what muscles they feed.
 
Ibn Alnafis MD said:
Yes we do. I have looked at the ppt slides for the full-length semester, and they are the same, with few modifications here and there.

It's a lot to cover, but you need to figure out what's worth your time to focus on. For example, if we are covering the arterial branches of the internal iliac artery, I'm not going to waste time going over every variation that exists. I'm just going to learn the main branches, their traveling paths, and what muscles they feed.
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Until they pin those, lol professors loved pinning the anomalies during my course.
 
Questions (BRS), group studying, drawing, repetition, and some dirty pneumonics are the key to passing anatomy. It was a tough class, I would never want to go through it again, but it was doable towards the end once you learn how to study for it.
 
dr.sartorius said:
Questions (BRS), group studying, drawing, repetition, and some dirty pneumonics are the key to passing anatomy. It was a tough class, I would never want to go through it again, but it was doable towards the end once you learn how to study for it.
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If I had a choice between losing a few digits or taking Anatomy again, I would lose the digits.

(Assuming no risk of infection/gangrene/whatever).
 
dr.sartorius said:
Questions (BRS), group studying, drawing, repetition, and some dirty pneumonics are the key to passing anatomy. It was a tough class, I would never want to go through it again, but it was doable towards the end once you learn how to study for it.
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Yeah, those lungs with pneumonia can really help. 😆
 
I find it very noble that some of your lab mates are willing to sacrifice their study time to skin and cut, skin and cut and skin and cut some more!
Ibn Alnafis MD said:
It will be to your advantage to have these gunners wanting to do all the cutting. You'll get to sit at the corner of the table and read through Netter's while they are busy "honing their surgical skills" peeling off endless fascia. Whenever there's an important landmark or a structure being revealed, just take a peak at it and then get back to studying. The thrill of dissection gets old very quickly and it becomes a very tedious task.

In my lab group (5 of us), there are no gunners, but there are a couple of individuals that prefer to do most of the cutting since it helps them learn the material better. The rest of us take the task of quizzing each other.
Click to expand...
 
I'm not a gunner and I'm not that interested in surgery, but I did do a lot of the dissections in my tank. For me, I can study this stuff any time I want, but I'm only going to be able to do this dissection on a real cadaver once. It's one of those things that, while I still disliked the smell, is part of the med school experience and is frankly quite unique and interesting. I enjoyed the experience overall and really enjoyed working with my hands for a change. But if you just want to sit there and quiz each other out of a dissector or Netters I guess that's probably fine too. There will always be people willing to do the cutting.
 
Back 5 said:
I find it very noble that some of your lab mates are willing to sacrifice their study time to skin and cut, skin and cut and skin and cut some more!
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They claimed that they learn better by doing the cutting themselves. I always attend the lab and I'm always available to help, but they are just too obsessed with the blade 😉. After all, I'm sacrificing the opportunity to hone my surgical skills. I want to be a surgeon too!
 
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DermViser said:
And the rest will ditch it, when they do their clerkship and realize how difficult and taxing it can be.
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Pre-meds come in to school with the mentality that they want to do the coolest specialties without actually knowing what they entail, surgery may sound cool but in the end, I believe the idea is funner than the reality of what comes with the job, which is why 99% end up ditching it.
 
dr.sartorius said:
Pre-meds come in to school with the mentality that they want to do the coolest specialties without actually knowing what they entail, surgery may sound cool but in the end, I believe the idea is funner than the reality of what comes with the job, which is why 99% end up ditching it.
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99% huh?
 
ChEMD said:
99% huh?
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I was on the exec board for our surgical interest group. I put out a questionnaire to the M1s. Out of ~180 people, we had 120 people who said they were "interested or very interested" in a career in surgery. Of that number, 60% said they were considering gen surg, ~35% ortho, ~35% cardiothoracic, ~30% transplant, ~25% neurosurgery, ~25% trauma/cc, ~20% plastic, ~15% ophthalmology, ~15% vascular, ~15% surgical oncology or breast, ~10% otolaryngology, ~10% urology.

So, we had a ton of students who were interested in surgery as M1s, and they were mostly interested in "hardcore" surgical fields.

Compare that to our match list: 3 ophtho, 11 ortho, 3 oto-hns, 10 gen surg, 1 cardiothoracic, 1 urology.

So that 120 went down to less than 30, with ortho being the most popular. Just interesting data.
 
VisionaryTics said:
I was on the exec board for our surgical interest group. I put out a questionnaire to the M1s. Out of ~180 people, we had 120 people who said they were "interested or very interested" in a career in surgery. Of that number, 60% said they were considering gen surg, ~35% ortho, ~35% cardiothoracic, ~30% transplant, ~25% neurosurgery, ~25% trauma/cc, ~20% plastic, ~15% ophthalmology, ~15% vascular, ~15% surgical oncology or breast, ~10% otolaryngology, ~10% urology.

So, we had a ton of students who were interested in surgery as M1s, and they were mostly interested in "hardcore" surgical fields.

Compare that to our match list: 3 ophtho, 11 ortho, 3 oto-hns, 10 gen surg, 1 cardiothoracic, 1 urology.

So that 120 went down to less than 30, with ortho being the most popular. Just interesting data.
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That being said, I made a list of the specialties I was interested in at the start of M1 year, and otolaryngology topped the list.
 
VisionaryTics said:
I was on the exec board for our surgical interest group. I put out a questionnaire to the M1s. Out of ~180 people, we had 120 people who said they were "interested or very interested" in a career in surgery. Of that number, 60% said they were considering gen surg, ~35% ortho, ~35% cardiothoracic, ~30% transplant, ~25% neurosurgery, ~25% trauma/cc, ~20% plastic, ~15% ophthalmology, ~15% vascular, ~15% surgical oncology or breast, ~10% otolaryngology, ~10% urology.

So, we had a ton of students who were interested in surgery as M1s, and they were mostly interested in "hardcore" surgical fields.

Compare that to our match list: 3 ophtho, 11 ortho, 3 oto-hns, 10 gen surg, 1 cardiothoracic, 1 urology.

So that 120 went down to less than 30, with ortho being the most popular. Just interesting data.
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I'm curious to know how many of those people would have also said that they're interested in/considering non-surgical specialties too. My guess is the number would be pretty high, making the results much less dramatic.
 
On the original topic, to share a study resource that worked for me:

I loved anatomy, and did better than in most of my other M1 classes. I approached the material like this guy:

He only has a few vids but they were priceless, and really helped me figure out how to think about anatomy (obviously they are not complete, just a good jumping off point). A certain amount of memorization is necessary, but the more I could tie structure to function, the more I remembered. I also used a coloring book and spent lots of time actively dissecting b/c not everyone in my group liked it.
 
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