How to freaking memorize ?? I am goong insane

[alaaz]

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The first 2 years in medical school i was doing great because the matrerial was quite light comparing 3rd year

I used to recopy the slides , each slide 2-3 times and repeat the whole lecture in my mind

But now with the reallu overwhelming material of 3rd year i can't do it's too time consuming and the amount to learn os huge

How do you actually make something stick in memory (without anki)
Do you read like a.passage

1- now
2 - after 10 min
3- after 1 hour

By reading i mean reading and not looking away and trying to recall the information from memory ??

 

[aggie08]

I have found the best way to make this stick once you get into the more involved parts of medicine is to stop memorizing and make sure you have a basic understanding. For me, because I spent most of the first two years memorizing, this meant going back and re-reading some of the basic phys stuff for whatever I was studying (so, for like heart murmurs I went back to basic cardiology phys and reviewed some of the building blocks then studied the topic I was focusing on).

There are obviously some things you can't do that with. I'm an ObGyn and cancer staging is one of the things that is like that. I found making flowsheets extremely helpful for this, because I could read - create the flowsheet as I read - then condense it into meaningful/simple/easily remembered pieces - then practice re-making the flowsheet on a white board. I'll attach a picture of one of my flowsheets. When I answered a question on our inservice exams it was almost like I could close my eyes and see the chart I had created in my head to find the right answer. I think this probably only works for people like me who do NOT have a photographic memory if you take the time to read, create, condense, and copy/practice your own charts.

This is my cervical cancer chart. If you go read the staging in a book for this it is far more detailed and confusing - I condensed the information into chunks of key information that could get me to the right answer when I was discussing with a patient or answering a question.

I started studying this way in my second year of med school with microbiology or pharm, I believe. Have continued through all of my training and found it helpful for many subjects.

 

[Stagg737]

The first 2 years in medical school i was doing great because the matrerial was quite light comparing 3rd year

I used to recopy the slides , each slide 2-3 times and repeat the whole lecture in my mind

But now with the reallu overwhelming material of 3rd year i can't do it's too time consuming and the amount to learn os huge

How do you actually make something stick in memory (without anki)
Do you read like a.passage

1- now
2 - after 10 min
3- after 1 hour

By reading i mean reading and not looking away and trying to recall the information from memory ??

I didn't do a lot of reading 3rd year. I usually pick a book for the rotation and read a little each night (typically came out to around 20 pages/day). My main source of studying/learning was from practice questions. I'd do UWorld for every section and either make a second pass or use Kaplan (school provided it free) for the sections with fewer questions like psych. I'd try and do 20 questions a day minimum, for sections like IM I'd do 40/day.

You'd gotta figure out what works for you. It sounds like reading isn't your way of learning. Unfortunately there aren't typically powerpoints for 3rd year rotations, but Emma Holliday (Ramaji?) has high yield powerpoints for several rotations that can help give some foundation.

 

[alaaz]

I didn't do a lot of reading 3rd year. I usually pick a book for the rotation and read a little each night (typically came out to around 20 pages/day). My main source of studying/learning was from practice questions. I'd do UWorld for every section and either make a second pass or use Kaplan (school provided it free) for the sections with fewer questions like psych. I'd try and do 20 questions a day minimum, for sections like IM I'd do 40/day.

You'd gotta figure out what works for you. It sounds like reading isn't your way of learning. Unfortunately there aren't typically powerpoints for 3rd year rotations, but Emma Holliday (Ramaji?) has high yield powerpoints for several rotations that can help give some foundation.

In mt country we don't study like that
It id always powerpoint slides or books printed in the library of the university given by the professor

And for practice question we have atmost 10 questions per chapter and nothing else

 

[Stagg737]

In mt country we don't study like that
It id always powerpoint slides or books printed in the library of the university given by the professor

And for practice question we have atmost 10 questions per chapter and nothing else

I'm just making suggestions based on what you've said. It shouldn't matter "how they study in your country". Study in a way that works for you. The practice questions I'm referring to are all found online, so no books necessary for them.

 

[Anicetus]

The first 2 years in medical school i was doing great because the matrerial was quite light comparing 3rd year

I used to recopy the slides , each slide 2-3 times and repeat the whole lecture in my mind

But now with the reallu overwhelming material of 3rd year i can't do it's too time consuming and the amount to learn os huge

How do you actually make something stick in memory (without anki)
Do you read like a.passage

1- now
2 - after 10 min
3- after 1 hour

By reading i mean reading and not looking away and trying to recall the information from memory ??

Calm my fellow pupil. For it is not you who is in the wrong. I used to be as flabbergasted as you were about the unique ability that a lot of medical students have. That is to memorize and remember most things they see or read in one go, maybe two, and are able to regurgitate it or recognize it on exams weeks to months later without reviewing. It is a unique ability that these students have, and are known to be the type who partied in college crammed and got 3.8+ GPAs while average normal people would see them in awe, wondering how they did it. Some say it's adderall, some say it's hard work, however having lived with some of these unique people, it is true, they don't nearly put in as much time as they may say, yet remember medical facts and pathologies down to the very detail without having to sit and study for hours and hours on end. Those that do study that much still do well, but are not as blessed as these memorizing fiends.

The ability to memorize after repetition yields a spectrum of results. Otherwise we would all be getting the same shelf and board scores unless for some reason variance that exists is due to test taking abilities.

So in the end, perhaps word association is not how your brain was made to encode information, which is what is required of anki. Perhaps you are a visual memorizer, like with sketchy. Perhaps you remember a unique patient or story. Find the way that helps you the most but yielding 270's on step exams is a privilege and a gift that has only been granted in those with the right methods AND the right neurological hardwiring.

 

[Keona]

Mind mapping whatever you are reading and while doing questions. http://www.tonybuzan.com/about/mind-mapping/ It helped me, I would make giant poster boards over over arching themes, small things I needed to memorize I wrote out on pieces of paper and attached them to walls througout the house. It worked for helping me to memorize things. Nothing else other than writing them out a million times and drawing and listening to recorded lectures or myself talking out my notes

 

[libertyyne]

I have found the best way to make this stick once you get into the more involved parts of medicine is to stop memorizing and make sure you have a basic understanding. For me, because I spent most of the first two years memorizing, this meant going back and re-reading some of the basic phys stuff for whatever I was studying (so, for like heart murmurs I went back to basic cardiology phys and reviewed some of the building blocks then studied the topic I was focusing on).

There are obviously some things you can't do that with. I'm an ObGyn and cancer staging is one of the things that is like that. I found making flowsheets extremely helpful for this, because I could read - create the flowsheet as I read - then condense it into meaningful/simple/easily remembered pieces - then practice re-making the flowsheet on a white board. I'll attach a picture of one of my flowsheets. When I answered a question on our inservice exams it was almost like I could close my eyes and see the chart I had created in my head to find the right answer. I think this probably only works for people like me who do NOT have a photographic memory if you take the time to read, create, condense, and copy/practice your own charts.

This is my cervical cancer chart. If you go read the staging in a book for this it is far more detailed and confusing - I condensed the information into chunks of key information that could get me to the right answer when I was discussing with a patient or answering a question.

I started studying this way in my second year of med school with microbiology or pharm, I believe. Have continued through all of my training and found it helpful for many subjects.

Can I just say
1. You have wonderful handwriting.
2. Thank you for sharing this.

 

[alaaz]

Calm my fellow pupil. For it is not you who is in the wrong. I used to be as flabbergasted as you were about the unique ability that a lot of medical students have. That is to memorize and remember most things they see or read in one go, maybe two, and are able to regurgitate it or recognize it on exams weeks to months later without reviewing. It is a unique ability that these students have, and are known to be the type who partied in college crammed and got 3.8+ GPAs while average normal people would see them in awe, wondering how they did it. Some say it's adderall, some say it's hard work, however having lived with some of these unique people, it is true, they don't nearly put in as much time as they may say, yet remember medical facts and pathologies down to the very detail without having to sit and study for hours and hours on end. Those that do study that much still do well, but are not as blessed as these memorizing fiends.

The ability to memorize after repetition yields a spectrum of results. Otherwise we would all be getting the same shelf and board scores unless for some reason variance that exists is due to test taking abilities.

So in the end, perhaps word association is not how your brain was made to encode information, which is what is required of anki. Perhaps you are a visual memorizer, like with sketchy. Perhaps you remember a unique patient or story. Find the way that helps you the most but yielding 270's on step exams is a privilege and a gift that has only been granted in those with the right methods AND the right neurological hardwiring.

So today i tried a new thing
I said to myself i was extremly great in physics in high school with actually minimum studying 1h a day 4 times a week and i was always getting at least 19 out of 20 and what i was doing is when i read a sentence literally i don't think of anything else only that sentence
Neither the sentence before it nor after it nothing
For example :
Gonocoque = cocci à gram - (in french)
That's the only thing i'm thinking of literally

And i found that my retention is way better