How do you memorize/learn a page of information in medical school?

[XxSynapsexX]

Hello everyone.

My question may need some clarification. I frequently find myself just forgetting information, being stuck on a page forever, sometimes passively reading, sometimes constantly quizzing myself and being stuck. I am in third year and this is killing my time.

My ultimate question is if you were on a specific page in your textbook, how would you go about efficiently ensuring you learn and memorize it.

What kind of mental processes are going on in your head to make sure you are learning and not just wasting your time?

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[Cognovi]

Identify the smallest unit of information on that page that you think is important. Formulate it in the form of question and answer. Review that question in Anki.

Active learning occurs in the first two steps. Memory consolidation occurs in the third step.

 

[DiscusKeeper]

I usually just sleep with my textbooks under my pillow and hope for the best.

When that doesn't work, I use anki cards. Spaced repetition is key to memorization. You aren't gonna memorize by just reading.

 

[Styrene]

Hello everyone.

My question may need some clarification. I frequently find myself just forgetting information, being stuck on a page forever, sometimes passively reading, sometimes constantly quizzing myself and being stuck. I am in third year and this is killing my time.

My ultimate question is if you were on a specific page in your textbook, how would you go about efficiently ensuring you learn and memorize it.

What kind of mental processes are going on in your head to make sure you are learning and not just wasting your time?

In my own experience, there are only two effective ways of memorizing something: active research/self-testing and spaced repetition. If the two can be combined, then maximal learning and long-term retention occur. Reading textbooks is a waste of time unless it is a focused part of in-depth research into a specific topic—that is, if you have formulated in your mind a question that needs answering and then turned to a specific textbook to find an answer.

I would only recommend Anki for Step 1 or if you really, really need it for med school classes. I am very experienced with it (used all through undergrad and first 6-8 months of med school), but I have thankfully weened myself off of it completely. It becomes a crutch.

EDIT: Still getting the same grades without Anki.

 

[Mad Jack]

Through repeated emotional trauma, usually. It's hard to explain, but the stress, fear of failure, and high stakes make learning happen in a very different way that you can't really understand until you're in it.

 

[GolfUSA]

Good ol' fashion handwritten note cards... >20,000 of them for the first 2 years. Read the text, understand how the pathology relates to symptomatology/diagnostic methods/ treatment, etc , then consolidate the information down to only what you don't yet know, write the front of the card as a question or series of questions with the answer on the back... Then 3-5 days before the exam start memorizing, eliminating cards as you learn them and just go to the bank with that. Brute force memorization and determination will get you there.

 

[Atom612]

In my own experience, there are only two effective ways of memorizing something: active research/self-testing and spaced repetition. If the two can be combined, then maximal learning and long-term retention occur. Reading textbooks is a waste of time unless it is a focused part of in-depth research into a specific topic—that is, if you have formulated in your mind a question that needs answering and then turned to a specific textbook to find an answer.

I would only recommend Anki for Step 1 or if you really, really need it for med school classes. I am very experienced with it (used all through undergrad and first 6-8 months of med school), but I have thankfully weened myself off of it completely. It becomes a crutch.

EDIT: Still getting the same grades without Anki.

How do you define active research? Isn't Anki an active way to self-test yourself utilizing spaced-repetition? How do your methods differ so much that it doesn't resemble what you would get out of anki?

 

[Cognovi]

How do you define active research? Isn't Anki an active way to self-test yourself utilizing spaced-repetition? How do your methods differ so much that it doesn't resemble what you would get out of anki?

Not sure what @Styrene means that Anki's a crutch. It's more like a prosthetic running blade or bionic leg. Artificial, takes effort to get used to, but allows you to achieve higher than conventional methods.

Making and then doing your own Anki cards is the only way to achieve 'active research' and 'self-testing and spaced repetition'. Active research involves asking a question, looking through information resources, reconciling the different information, and synthesizing an answer. That question and answer can be put on Anki cards.

 

[XxSynapsexX]

Not sure what @Styrene means that Anki's a crutch. It's more like a prosthetic running blade or bionic leg. Artificial, takes effort to get used to, but allows you to achieve higher than conventional methods.

Making and then doing your own Anki cards is the only way to achieve 'active research' and 'self-testing and spaced repetition'. Active research involves asking a question, looking through information resources, reconciling the different information, and synthesizing an answer. That question and answer can be put on Anki cards.

I have tried Anki and it never worked for me, it was just a boring interface and I often felt my knowledge became fragmented pieces rather than a comprehensive body.

 

[ChrisMack390]

Anki, but it only counts if you make the cards yourself (learned this the hard way).

 

[TheOneAndOnlyJamesFranco]

Anki, but it only counts if you make the cards yourself (learned this the hard way).

How, and why?


Sent from my iPhone using SDN mobile

 

[mistafab]

My friend at school uses anki and works HARD - he is the smartest guy in the class by far and gets the best grades on every test. He also uses USMLE RX and pathoma + boards and beyond (hard worker). He goes to school as early as I do and works later.

I get great grades but I just use lectures + USMLERX + pathoma + kaplan vids. So I'm doing well, above average for sure, but nothing like my hard working friend. I'm only at school 8:30 to 6:30pm at most.

If your end goal is to memorize pages of information, your best best is flashcards (like ANKI) and working your *** off.

 

[Styrene]

How do you define active research? Isn't Anki an active way to self-test yourself utilizing spaced-repetition? How do your methods differ so much that it doesn't resemble what you would get out of anki?

Sorry if I came across differently, but Anki is the single most effective way of learning. My point is that after making tens of thousands of cards and spending your life reviewing cards, that method of learning becomes so ingrained that it becomes THE way you learn. I just do it now without actually making the cards, thus saving time.

Edit: By active research, I mean starting a new topic from scratch without any background information by only using case studies and researching to find what’s wrong with the patient.

 

[Pectoralis Major]

Sorry if I came across differently, but Anki is the single most effective way of learning. My point is that after making tens of thousands of cards and spending your life reviewing cards, that method of learning becomes so ingrained that it becomes THE way you learn. I just do it now without actually making the cards, thus saving time.

Be it Anki or old fashioned note cards, repetition and *active learning* by constantly testing your knowledge are the keys in my opinion.

 

[Styrene]

My friend at school uses anki and works HARD - he is the smartest guy in the class by far and gets the best grades on every test. He also uses USMLE RX and pathoma + boards and beyond (hard worker). He goes to school as early as I do and works later.

I get great grades but I just use lectures + USMLERX + pathoma + kaplan vids. So I'm doing well, above average for sure, but nothing like my hard working friend. I'm only at school 8:30 to 6:30pm at most.

If your end goal is to memorize pages of information, your best best is flashcards (like ANKI) and working your *** off.

When you mention you are school for 10 hours per day, do you mean you are studying for 10 hours per day? I’ve heard people say they do this, but I still don’t understand how that’s possible. I can’t do more than maybe 5 hours.

 

[Styrene]

Be it Anki or old fashioned note cards, repetition and *active learning* by constantly testing your knowledge are the keys in my opinion.

They are...all the learning research shows this over and over and over. Yet, I still see people reading text books and highlighting in different colors and making sheets of notes, etc. It blows my mind. You can get better results without ever picking up a pen or even writing down anything. Once the active learning + self-test method is burned into your brain, you will think this way about all material even without notecards. I’m serious when I say I do “Anki” now without using Anki or index cards or anything — just my iPad, Google, and small group cases. Saves so much time.

The other important thing is to use UWorld and USMLE-Rx to do practice questions for each topic you are learning. The stuff about “saving UWorld” is heresay and not based in evidence; I believe the evidence is contrary to that as well. Practice, practice, practice.

 

[68PGunner]

I used Anki-pan. It takes me less than 2 secs to memorize a page. The side effect is that I am slowly developing a beer gut regardless of the # of exercise. This is the missing ingredient to acing medical schools for a lot of people. It's available for shipping from Japan.

 

[mistafab]

I spend 45-60 minutes in the gym MWF and 15 minutes for a snack lunch every day.

Depends on your year. My average for M1 was around 5-5.5 a day. Once I moved into M2 pharm/path/etc it just bumped up.

When you mention you are school for 10 hours per day, do you mean you are studying for 10 hours per day? I’ve heard people say they do this, but I still don’t understand how that’s possible. I can’t do more than maybe 5 hours.

 

[ChrisMack390]

How, and why?


Sent from my iPhone using SDN mobile

At least for me, the act of making the cards is a learning event. In order to make a good card, you can't just paste a bunch of crap and read it later. You have to distill information into relevant, digestible bites and come up with good ways of testing your knowledge of those bites later on. Cloze deletion and image occlusion cards are particularly good, at least for me.

At the very beginning of my anatomy course I tried to take a shortcut by using Anki cards that other people had made, and I quickly realized that I was not retaining enough information. I switched back to making my own cards and have been doing much better.

Note that these are basically my opinions (though they are backed by research), and I firmly believe that everyone learns differently and there is no one size fits all study method.

 

[vit-012]

Identify the smallest unit of information on that page that you think is important. Formulate it in the form of question and answer.
<.....Step is missing.....> Review that question in Anki.
Active learning occurs in the first two steps. Memory consolidation occurs in the third step.

An important step is missing:
* Do the next chunk; and next - until 10 - 20 min passed.
* In Anki, change default steps from 1 10 to 10 15.
* Now Review in Anki; you will be testing if Anki's default Step 10 min produces
the Retention rate 85-95%.

 

[Cognovi]

A important step is missing:
* Do the next chank; and next - until 10 - 20 min passed.
* In Anki, change default steps from 1 10 to 10 15.
* Now Review in Anki; you will be testing if Anki's default Step 10 min produces
the Retention rate 85-95%.

1) What is a chank?
2) Increasing the reviews during the initial learning phase is the easiest way to lower your efficiency.
3) Changing the interval modifier or ease will have a bigger impact on your retention of mature cards.
4) Testing in steps of 10-20 minutes during the learning phase is not true retention, it is short term memory

 

[DrDarce]

I might be different than everyone else because memorizing doesn't really work for me. I usually make a first pass through the material and really make sure I understand the main concepts and force myself not to worry about the details yet. I find that difficult at times because I WANT to get all the details down. It actually saves me time this way though because on the subsequent read through the details become more manageable and easier to remember because I fit it in the framework of the larger concepts. Maybe you can be more efficient with it than me, but this is what I do for most things and my long term retention has held up.

 

[neoexile]

Hello everyone.

My question may need some clarification. I frequently find myself just forgetting information, being stuck on a page forever, sometimes passively reading, sometimes constantly quizzing myself and being stuck. I am in third year and this is killing my time.

My ultimate question is if you were on a specific page in your textbook, how would you go about efficiently ensuring you learn and memorize it.

What kind of mental processes are going on in your head to make sure you are learning and not just wasting your time?

I use anki. I'll type up a vignette about a disease and then ask myself the question (on separate cards):

What is the disease?

What is the pathophysiology of the disease?

What are other diagnoses that should be considered?

What is the next step?

Step 1 is done. What is the next step?

Step n is done. What is the next step?

What is this treatment?

What are the complications?

And I would go over it over and over and over. Medicine is science, but it is also a language and you need to internalize it.

 

[Med Ed]

I might be different than everyone else because memorizing doesn't really work for me. I usually make a first pass through the material and really make sure I understand the main concepts and force myself not to worry about the details yet. I find that difficult at times because I WANT to get all the details down. It actually saves me time this way though because on the subsequent read through the details become more manageable and easier to remember because I fit it in the framework of the larger concepts. Maybe you can be more efficient with it than me, but this is what I do for most things and my long term retention has held up.

I want to print this on banners and hang it all over our school.

 

[Save a life]

Anki + practice questions = success.

Med school is all about active learning (recall, testing). Passive learning with just reading or watching videos is inefficient. Reading and videos are great for the first time you see material but after that you should test yourself over and over again with flash cards, practice tests, BRS, whatever you have that forces you to recall or recognize the material. Studying should be uncomfortable because you are reviewing the material you feel the least comfortable with.

 

[lagbydesign]

Anki + practice questions = success.

Med school is all about active learning (recall, testing). Passive learning with just reading or watching videos is inefficient. Reading and videos are great for the first time you see material but after that you should test yourself over and over again with flash cards, practice tests, BRS, whatever you have that forces you to recall or recognize the material. Studying should be uncomfortable because you are reviewing the material you feel the least comfortable with.

I'm guessing "success" means honoring, because I was an anki lord last block, and I was making B+'s. I hardly did any practice qs, and I believe that's what prevented me from getting honors. Our tests are not straight regurgitation; they are a mix of rote memorization and application, which is why I believe practice qs are an absolute must.

 

[neoexile]

I'm guessing "success" means honoring, because I was an anki lord last block, and I was making B+'s. I hardly did any practice qs , and I believe that's what prevented me from getting honors. Our tests are not straight regurgitation; they are a mix of rote memorization and application, which is why I believe practice qs are an absolute must.

Anki is a preliminary step. After that, you should do practice questions. And then make ankis on things you didn't learn.

 

[Brahnold Bloodaxe]

USMLE suppositories. That's the only way to compete if you're really thinking about getting to the elite level, the 265+ step scores. I know it sounds crazy, like why would you do that to yourself, but it's no different from professional athletes and PEDs. If you want to be the best of the best, you have no choice but to do what the competition is doing.

As for how you can get your hands on them, it's obviously not straightforward. You can't just waltz into a bookstore and buy these. Your best bet is to go to a AOA social function or hang around a derm department at a top institution. Sooner or later you'll hear people talking. When that happens, you gotta be cool, like. You don't want to spook them off by barging in like Guderian's Fifth Panzer Division or something. Slowly ingratiate yourself into their circle, then you may be able to get your hands on them suppositories.

 

[vit-012]

1) What is a chunk?
2) Increasing the reviews during the initial learning phase is the easiest way to lower your efficiency.
3) Changing the interval modifier or ease will have a bigger impact on your retention of mature cards.
4) Testing in steps of 10-20 minutes during the learning phase is not true retention, it is short term memory

2. I am nobody but know Anki well; you may read the post from m2 medical student in reddit ('medicalschoolanki' ); the post 3 day ago; the title starts with ' Discussion'.
3) Changing the interval modifier or ease will have a bigger impact on your retention of mature cards.
= if your retention is bad, ( and the card design has no big mistakes) - one should not meddling with Interval_modifier ( let alone - the Ease ).
The Interval optimization progression IMO should be:
* Optimize the Step-1 first;
* step-2 is a derivative of step-1: multiply by 3
* do I need step-3 ?
* Graduating interval: 1 or 2 ? or 5 ?
* Lapsed cards' Step and `Minimum_Interval ( at the same time ).
4) Testing in steps of 10-20 minutes during the learning phase is not true retention, it is short term memory.
= I did not say that. You are testing if the 10m step is too small - thus is not
conducive to good memory and therefore is wasteful.

 

[Cognovi]

I did not say that. You are testing if the 10m step is too small - thus is not
conducive to good memory and therefore is wasteful.

Oh I see. I actually agree and would take it farther - I think most people should change the first step from 10 min to 1440 min (ie, 1 day). 10 min is for material that is completely new and for which you do not have a good foundation (eg, if you imported a dictionary to learn a foreign language).

 

[vit-012]

I think most people should change the first step from 10 min to 1440 min (ie, 1 day)....

My 10 20 min is for the illustration only and for New cards.
Since Zanki is a combination of Unseen and forgotten cards, the solution could be:
* the user decides whether to use the Deck_Option with step-1 in minutes or in Hours.
I do not advise switching options for every card; let's say if the Minutes step option is active but the card is 'known to you' - bury it. Tomorrow Anki will unbury them and the user will temporarily switch the Option_Group to Hours_Group.
Caviat about 1440 Step. Anki will 'hide' it at the bottom of the Review queue; Manual: Quote: " In contrast, cards that cross the day turnover are scheduled on a per-day basis -- like reviews are. When you return to study the next day, the per-day learning cards will not be shown first. Instead, the cards will be shown after reviews are completed." So it is better to have the Learning interval <1440 and not let the interval to spill over to the next day. And if it is time to go to bed, change the "Learn Ahead LIMIT" to 999 and Anki will show the cards held up by not-expired steps.

 

[jcorpsmanMD]

My 10 20 min is for the illustration only and for New cards.
Since Zanki is a combination of Unseen and forgotten cards, the solution could be:
* the user decides whether to use the Deck_Option with step-1 in minutes or in Hours.
I do not advise switching options for every card; let's say if the Minutes step option is active but the card is 'known to you' - bury it. Tomorrow Anki will unbury them and the user will temporarily switch the Option_Group to Hours_Group.
Caviat about 1440 Step. Anki will 'hide' it at the bottom of the Review queue; Manual: Quote: " In contrast, cards that cross the day turnover are scheduled on a per-day basis -- like reviews are. When you return to study the next day, the per-day learning cards will not be shown first. Instead, the cards will be shown after reviews are completed." So it is better to have the Learning interval <1440 and not let the interval to spill over to the next day. And if it is time to go to bed, change the "Learn Ahead LIMIT" to 999 and Anki will show the cards held up by not-expired steps.

What...

 

[velodork]

No one here for concept mapping??? It can be time intensive and exhausting but it sort of forces the process of active learning. I never tried it before medical school but I cant imagine using any other strategy now... I do use anki for factoid memorization which concept maps aren't always good at but for the most part just having a spatial awareness of the material I'm covering (cmap) more often than not leads me to the correct answer choices on exams.

 

[hopefulERdoc251]

This is interesting. My M1, I did anki at the 1min/10min/2 day interval that I was told by upperclassmen and found myself more often than not utilizing short term memory even for when the card came up 10 mins later. It wouldn't give me time to interfere with the consolidation process. How I do it is 10 min, 60 min, 2 days as my intervals so that when I get through the first pass, it'll come up 1 hour later so I have time to do something else/learn something else and then retest myself. I found that to be much better to help me retain and learn stuff (albeit it can be a little annoying to do this everyday)

 

[chizledfrmstone]

Medical school taught me 2 things

1.) How to learn a large amount of information
2.) Medicine

 

[DrDarce]

I want to print this on banners and hang it all over our school.

Thanks. It's hard to do and/or sell it to other people because you have to trust the process, which is scary when you have exams coming up. What if you can't nail down the details that you are responsible for? It's understandable for medical students to force memorize things because of that fear not getting all the information down. I still get that fear when I go over new material, but it eventually goes away as I get more familiar with it. I was probably doing anki wrong (for the brief amount of time I tried it), but I wasn't making the connections as fast as I wanted to and I was also missing connections altogether.