How much will a killer memory help?

[argonana]

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How much will it help in medical school to have a good/photographic memory--will it make it easy? Will it cut down on study time?

 

[big_smiles]

Perhaps. Depends. I wouldn't be focusing on cutting down study time now though.
I know I will work my ass off in med school and am keeping that mentality.
Don't worry how many hrs a week it takes. Focus on getting through it, hopefully with a high pass.

 

[italicsquirel99]

How much will it help in medical school to have an unusually good, somewhat photographic memory--will it make it easy? Will it cut down on study time?

Umm...you have been in school for quite a number of years at this point, right? Has it helped you with studying so far?

 

[argonana]

Umm...you have been in school for quite a number of years at this point, right? Has it helped you with studying so far?

to some extent (more so in high school), but the med school curriculum will be quite different. it sounds like studying in med school is based almost completely on memorization...i don't know if this is an accurate impression or not.

 

[Brainsucker]

to some extent (more so in high school), but the med school curriculum will be quite different. it sounds like studying in med school is based almost completely on memorization...i don't know if this is an accurate impression or not.

You got your **** made! Physiology takes some thought, though. But yeah, your memorization abilities will serve you very well. Go to a lecture school instead of a PBL school so you can really utilize your mad memory skillz.

 

[BKN]

How much will it help in medical school to have a good/photographic memory--will it make it easy? Will it cut down on study time?

It'll help a lot in yers 1 and 2. Once you get out on the wards you'll need all that recall, synthesis and reasoning stuff you got from the chem and physics courses.

 

[Penelope1]

A great memory wouldn't hurt, but being able and willing to thoroughly understand what you're learning helps at least as much, I think. I find that if you understand a process, you'll be much better able to take one fact that you've memorized and figure out several related facts simply by reasoning it out.

One of my greatest concerns about med school was that it would be 99% memorization. It can be, if you choose to study that way, and some courses are unavoidably memory-intense (e.g. micro), but you can probably cut your study time in half, do better on exams, and increase your chances of remembering things for the boards and your life as a doctor if you rely less on memorization and more on understanding what's going on.

 

[drmota]

a student at one of my interviewers asked me upon meeting me "you're not a kodak, are you? we don't like kodaks here"... i answered no, not knowing what a kodak is. i soon found out a kodak is an a-hole with a photographic memory. OBVIOUSLY it would help in med school when you're just running around memorizing a bunch of stuff. don't be ignorant.
-dr. mota

 

[novacek88]

It won't help that much in medical school. I have a photographic memory too but I had to study a lot more in medical school as opposed to college. In college, we were tested on a high volume of information too but the questions were so easy that if you memorized every piece of information, you would ace a test.

In medical school, test questions are not written in a straighforward manner in which you can just conveniently pull something you memorized. Everyone in medical school has great memorization skills otherwise they wouldn't be there. Professors know this and are still responsible for maintaining a bell curve so they ask tricky questions that require conceptualization. And this goes for classes like anatomy as well. Maybe 20% of your questions per exam will be asked in a direct manner in which if you memorized a list of information, you can answer them easily. Everything else will be conceptual and ask you to integrate or analyze something you learned. It isn't engineering by any means but it isn't General Biology on steroids either, which is what a lot of medical students think when they are told "It's all memorization." The biggest myth about medical school is that it is all memorization. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The best students are the ones who memorize everything and then spend additional time integrating and applying what they learned. And the only way they accomplish this is by studying like a fiend. If you just memorized everything, you would probably pass or get 80's. If you want 90's and Honors, you must have a deep understanding to answer the tricky questions that profs throw out to separate the gunners from the rest of the class.

 

[Zoom-Zoom]

How much will it help in medical school to have a good/photographic memory--will it make it easy? Will it cut down on study time?

Do you have a "good" memory or a photographic memory?...there's a big difference. That would be cool if you were a "kodak".

It does seem pretty trendy these days for anyone with a facility for memorization to say they have a photographic memory...I'm not saying you're one of these...but it seems like I hear someone say this every week and true photographic memories are definitely not a dime a dozen

I had a Latin teacher once who we could show a page of latin for a couple seconds and she could translate it in her head afterwards...it was the coolest freakin thing I've ever seen.

 

[Virgil]

Now, how exactly does one become this so-called "Kodak?" *evil snickering*

No, really, I'm serious. Are there classes or something?

 

[Virgil]

Do you have a "good" memory or a photographic memory?...there's a big difference. That would be cool if you were a "kodak".

It does seem pretty trendy these days for anyone with a facility for memorization to say they have a photographic memory...I'm not saying you're one of these...but it seems like I hear someone say this every week and true photographic memories are definitely not a dime a dozen

I had a Latin teacher once who we could show a page of latin for a couple seconds and she could translate it in her head afterwards...it was the coolest freakin thing I've ever seen.

Hey, if the only thing I learned in all those four years of undergrad was just being able to do that, I think I'd be set for medical school. I mean, not only is she memorizing what was on that page but she is critically thinking about it by translating it. That's insane...

 

[novacek88]

Well I will add that it depends which medical school you attend. I have seen some medical schools whose questions are so easy that if one merely memorized their notes, they could achieve 100%. Unfortunately, I didn't attend one of those schools. My professors actually spent time writing our questions.

 

[argonana]

The biggest myth about medical school is that it is all memorization. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Aha! Yeah, it's a huge myth, then. I've been wondering a lot whether this was true.

Brainsucker, thanks for the tip on choosing a school with a lecture-based curriculum. I'll definitely need to keep that in mind.

 

[argonana]

Do you have a "good" memory or a photographic memory?...there's a big difference. That would be cool if you were a "kodak".

no, i am not a kodak. that would be sweet. i just have a good memory...i retain certain images but certainly not everything...i'm good with faces, names, and random useless info...like spelling ...we'll see where it gets me.

your latin teacher would've freaked me out. that is totally amazing.

 

[Virgil]

Will classmates be annoyed if I walk around with an electronic flash unit attached to my head?

 

[argonana]

virgil, i preferred your old avatar. that thing scares me.

 

[Virgil]

virgil, i preferred your old avatar. that thing scares me.

Mission accomplished.

 

[Rafa]

Remember that scene in The Bourne Identity, where Jason and Marie were in the winter lodge, early in the movie?

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Jason Bourne: Who has a safety deposit box full of... money and six passports and a gun? Who has a bank account number in their hip? I come in here, and the first thing I'm doing is I'm catching the sightlines and looking for an exit.

Marie: I see the exit sign, too, I'm not worried. I mean, you were shot. People do all kinds of weird and amazing stuff when they are scared.

Jason Bourne: I can tell you the license plate numbers of all six cars outside. I can tell you that our waitress is left-handed and the guy sitting up at the counter weighs two hundred fifteen pounds and knows how to handle himself. I know the best place to look for a gun is the cab of the gray truck outside, and at this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking. Now why would I know that? How can I know that and not know who I am?

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The part about the license plates? That's a photographic memory 🙂

 

[Fermata]

It's certainly gonna be a benefit but to what degree it is not certain.

It certainly won't hold you back.

 

[gary5]

If you have a killer memory, then med school will be a breeze for you. It is the rest of us that have to work.

 

[MoosePilot]

Remember that scene in The Bourne Identity, where Jason and Marie were in the winter lodge, early in the movie?

---

Jason Bourne: Who has a safety deposit box full of... money and six passports and a gun? Who has a bank account number in their hip? I come in here, and the first thing I'm doing is I'm catching the sightlines and looking for an exit.

Marie: I see the exit sign, too, I'm not worried. I mean, you were shot. People do all kinds of weird and amazing stuff when they are scared.

Jason Bourne: I can tell you the license plate numbers of all six cars outside. I can tell you that our waitress is left-handed and the guy sitting up at the counter weighs two hundred fifteen pounds and knows how to handle himself. I know the best place to look for a gun is the cab of the gray truck outside, and at this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking. Now why would I know that? How can I know that and not know who I am?

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The part about the license plates? That's a photographic memory 🙂

He's one of the few people I'd be rather than myself. He's so frickin' cool!

 

[penguinophile]

He's one of the few people I'd be rather than myself. He's so frickin' cool!

Anyone who can fight with a friggin Bic pen is a BAMF.

 

[MoosePilot]

I just realized that Jason Bourne had both a killer memory and a killer's memory

 

[Law2Doc]

How much will it help in medical school to have a good/photographic memory--will it make it easy? Will it cut down on study time?

I think it would help a ton in med school. But I agree with the prior poster that some of the questions are a bit convoluted and thus even someone with a perfect memory can't expect to ace every test. I don't actually think it would necessarilly cut down on study time, because there is so much to know, and most folks don't realistically expect to learn or memorize all of it, just the key components. Someone with a photographic memory might be able to learn a much bigger chunk, though, and could thus spend the same amount of time with the expectation of a much higher yield (honors, AOA, the admiration of his/her peers, etc). Depends on the shutter speed.

 

[LabMonster]

Now, how exactly does one become this so-called "Kodak?" *evil snickering*

No, really, I'm serious. Are there classes or something?

You can improve your memory with any number of strategies - but the eidectic memory is pure genetics.

It would be a great help to be able to page through Harrison's in your head, but if you can't synthesize new info - then you're a useless doc anyway.

Goes back to the MCAT - not a memorizing test, a thinking test. We can all memorize endless reams of minutiae.

 

[Law2Doc]

You can improve your memory with any number of strategies - but the eidectic memory is pure genetics.

It would be a great help to be able to page through Harrison's in your head, but if you can't synthesize new info - then you're a useless doc anyway.

Goes back to the MCAT - not a memorizing test, a thinking test. We can all memorize endless reams of minutiae.

Med school tests are less like the MCAT. Pure memorization is more often rewarded. It's less about figuring out problems in most classes. But the wording in the questions is often convoluted, so you need to understand what is being asked before your rote memorization is going to help.

I think I have a photographic memory, but every time I open my eyes I think the film gets exposed. 😱
Also, it's not enough to have a photographic memory -- you need to also have an equally good recall system (i.e. a good set of well organized "albums"). Otherwise you are going to be sorting through a pile of a billion "photos" to try and find the one you need. I'm pretty sure my mind works this way -- it's all in there but often quite useless to me. 😡

 

[ND2005]

Remember that scene in The Bourne Identity, where Jason and Marie were in the winter lodge, early in the movie?

---

Jason Bourne: Who has a safety deposit box full of... money and six passports and a gun? Who has a bank account number in their hip? I come in here, and the first thing I'm doing is I'm catching the sightlines and looking for an exit.

Marie: I see the exit sign, too, I'm not worried. I mean, you were shot. People do all kinds of weird and amazing stuff when they are scared.

Jason Bourne: I can tell you the license plate numbers of all six cars outside. I can tell you that our waitress is left-handed and the guy sitting up at the counter weighs two hundred fifteen pounds and knows how to handle himself. I know the best place to look for a gun is the cab of the gray truck outside, and at this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking. Now why would I know that? How can I know that and not know who I am?

---

The part about the license plates? That's a photographic memory 🙂

That wasn't a photographic memory...that's someone who was trained to pay attention to specific details that may save their life.

It does seem pretty trendy these days for anyone with a facility for memorization to say they have a photographic memory...I'm not saying you're one of these...but it seems like I hear someone say this every week and true photographic memories are definitely not a dime a dozen

I agree Zoom-Zoom...there are so many people who claim to have a photographic memory and don't. A genuine photographic memory is a huge rarity.

 

[45408]

He's one of the few people I'd be rather than myself. He's so frickin' cool!

Yeah, I'd take uber-intelligence+ninja fighting skills+vast technical knowledge+common sense+Matt Damon's looks over mine any day. 😛

 

[Law2Doc]

Yeah, I'd take uber-intelligence+ninja fighting skills+vast technical knowledge+common sense+Matt Damon's looks over mine any day. 😛

From my own experience, it's not all it's cracked up to be. 🙂 Plus the blacked out memory and folks trying to kill you all the time more than outweights the benefits.