Is Medicine all Memorization?

[Slowpoke]

As a physician, do you feel that there is a requirement to be able to think critically to be able to perform your job well?

More specifically, do you feel that you often "think critically" to help patients or is health care more similar to cook-book recipe routines.

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[J-Rad]

Moving to Pre-Allo.

 

[slatermd]

As a physician, do you feel that there is a requirement to be able to think critically to be able to perform your job well?

More specifically, do you feel that you often "think critically" to help patients or is health care more similar to cook-book recipe routines.

Depends on your specialty (haha, j/k flame war ensues)

I'd say the best doctors in the world use a good mixture of memorization, critical thinking, and extreme balling.

 

[cowme]

M1 and M2 years are pretty much all memorization.
M3 and M4 you still do a fair amount memorization, but its mostly learning how to interact with patients and care for them. Your work day is usually 6 AM to 6 PM, then go home to memorize lists, especially your M3 year, it can get grueling...

Residency, the memorization is pretty minimal, but still some you need to learn for important patients. But the workflow is so rigorous that you simply don't have the time to go home and memorize, other than maybe an hour or so if you are lucky. Pretty much becomes learning on the fly/learning by doing at this point. (Radiology and Pathology are 2 exceptions where the hours are light enough to go home and study--memorization is most important in residency in these fields, IMO).

Once you are out there as an attending, sure you read journals to stay up to date, but you aren't taking lists of antibiotics and applying mnemonics to help learn them better.

 

[Slowpoke]

M1 and M2 years are pretty much all memorization.
M3 and M4 you still do a fair amount memorization, but its mostly learning how to interact with patients and care for them. Your work day is usually 6 AM to 6 PM, then go home to memorize lists, especially your M3 year, it can get grueling...

Residency, the memorization is pretty minimal, but still some you need to learn for important patients. But the workflow is so rigorous that you simply don't have the time to go home and memorize, other than maybe an hour or so if you are lucky. Pretty much becomes learning on the fly/learning by doing at this point. (Radiology and Pathology are 2 exceptions where the hours are light enough to go home and study--memorization is most important in residency in these fields, IMO).

Once you are out there as an attending, sure you read journals to stay up to date, but you aren't taking lists of antibiotics and applying mnemonics to help learn them better.

Would you say that Medical school is one big list of bones, muscles, drugs, and illnesses with no coherent line of reasoning/logic?

Is your typical day: "Here is a list, remember it".

 

[Geneticist]

Pre-Med can be mostly memorization depending on your major. From the sounds of it, so is M1/M2 as well. Most of those six years are rote memorization...

 

[Slowpoke]

Pre-Med can be mostly memorization depending on your major. From the sounds of it, so is M1/M2 as well. Most of those six years are rote memorization...

Although undergraduate may sometimes appear as a big memorization scheme, the material opens up to opportunities for actual learning and critical thinking (not just zombie-mode rote memorizing) if one were to take the time.

Nevertheless, just wanted to know some insight on the actual profession and how much a working physician needs to "think".

 

[Geneticist]

I'm not sure why this was moved to pre-allo then... ???

 

[ridethecliche]

My undergrad was NOT all memorization.

 

[Slowpoke]

I'm not sure why this was moved to pre-allo then... ???

you and me both... I was kind of disheartened 🙁

 

[StudyShy]

I would think that in med school one would have to use all of the facts memorized and apply those facts in the form of critical thinking in respect to individual patients. Although it might sound like a cookie cutter kind of formula, diagosing and treatment can get rather complex.

 

[Narmerguy]

I'm not sure why this was moved to pre-allo then... ???

That's one of the weaknesses of SDN. Questions clearly outside the knowledge of premeds is often dumped here for multiple reasons.

• A lot of the questions appear stupid or juvenile
• Each higher level wants to associate mainly with people/posters/topics that they're interested in
• It's gotta go somewhere. I suppose All Students is the graveyard of graveyards for threads though.

The "theory" is that med students and residents populate and visit this board enough to still provide helpful information here, but that's decreased over time as SDN has grown and become more "compartmentalized".

It's unfortunate because a lot of times premeds have questions that only medical students or higher know what they're talking about. However, the purpose of this forum isn't as much to provide helpful information (despite how we commonly tort it to be) as to provide an opportunity for interacting and discussing. Often we provide helpful information because it's mutually beneficial if everyone does it. Nonetheless, largely because of the vast amounts of stupidity in Pre-Allo, other forums become wary of premeds bringing junk to their boards.

Let's put it this way: If you were a resident and had started this thread, it would not be in pre-allo right now.

 

[TooMuchResearch]

you and me both... I was kind of disheartened 🙁

The thread may have been started in a forum where pre-meds aren't allowed to start threads.

 

[mauberley]

To be fair, while pre-meds wouldn't be able to answer the question, pre-meds would be the correct audience for reading the responses.

 

[DrMom]

There are med students and residents who read and respond to pre-allo threads. The med student and residency forums are for members who are in those stages of training to discuss issues of those stages of training. Questions posed by pre-meds really belong in the pre-med forums.


While there is a lot of memorization in medicine because you have to know a lot of details, you must be able to have understanding of physiologic processes, pathology, and pharmacologic effects to practice medicine well. As you move along in training you'll realize that while medicine is a science, there truly is an art to its practice.

 

[cowme]

Would you say that Medical school is one big list of bones, muscles, drugs, and illnesses with no coherent line of reasoning/logic?

Is your typical day: "Here is a list, remember it".

Anatomy and pharmacology are pretty much all lists.
Otherwise, every course definitely follows logic and isn't just a string of random facts. Sure there will be weird ones (like scorpion bites as a cause of pancreatitis....certainly a huge worry for Boston in the midst of the winter)

the only time you really make/use lists to memorize is for exams (just like any exam you've ever taken).

 

[Lil Mick]

Yes, this is not a profession for the thinking-type, unless you end up in residency that promotes critical thinking (Emergency Medicine...). Thus far in medical school, I actually have had exams asking which one of these isn't in the list of something given to us in lecture. If you don't like memorization, I'd suggest getting a PhD instead...

 

[ACSurgeon]

As a physician, do you feel that there is a requirement to be able to think critically to be able to perform your job well?

More specifically, do you feel that you often "think critically" to help patients or is health care more similar to cook-book recipe routines.

Medicine is like math... you need to LEARN (you can call it memorize) the basics, but after that, it's alot of thinking.

For those who relay on memorization, they often miss the big picture and struggle, as the volume is numerous times greater than undergrad courses, and memorizing is too inefficient. If you think of what you're learning, you'll remember it long term, and be a better doctor for it.

 

[ha87]

Practicing medicine is not just about memorizing things. Think about if you went to the Doctor and all he did was treat according to memorized facts. From what I have observed there are trends that you learn and "memorize" through practice and use to treat patients. In general, I would say that critical thinking is one of the many qualities that separates practicing physicians from Web-Md.

That is not to say, however, that memorization is not important for medical school or for the profession.

 

[mmmcdowe]

1)YES!
2)NO!
3)???
4)PROFIT!


Medicine is quite a bit of memorization, but rote memorization is the hardest way to do medicine.

 

[Slowpoke]

Thanks for all of the replies so far.

Would you guys say that potentially, you can go through medical school actually trying to learn and integrate the knowledge into a bigger picture? Or is it often the case where you're just finding yourself with so much to cram into your head that it's not the most efficient method given the amount of time you have to work with.

 

[ARK013]

Thanks for all of the replies so far.

Would you guys say that potentially, you can go through medical school actually trying to learn and integrate the knowledge into a bigger picture? Or is it often the case where you're just finding yourself with so much to cram into your head that it's not the most efficient method given the amount of time you have to work with.

You should always try to integrate things into the bigger picture. There is time for that with some things, not with others. It all depends on how you learn! I would say that integrating things into the big picture definitely makes it stick better, but a lot of times that just involves memorizing random names of things like chemicals or drugs or diseases, so you'll just end up only remembering general outlines of pathways or whatnot instead. But definitely try to see things as the big picture!

 

[cowme]

Thanks for all of the replies so far.

Would you guys say that potentially, you can go through medical school actually trying to learn and integrate the knowledge into a bigger picture? Or is it often the case where you're just finding yourself with so much to cram into your head that it's not the most efficient method given the amount of time you have to work with.

It's like learning a language. At first, you are just memorizing lists of words, then you memorize the rules. Eventually, it all just comes together as second nature. You will reach third year and see a patient with chest pain, and as you talk to him, you will just know what is going on, and what studies and meds he needs...it will just click one day, same as any language you work at enough

 

[Perrotfish]

It's like learning a language. At first, you are just memorizing lists of words, then you memorize the rules. Eventually, it all just comes together as second nature. You will reach third year and see a patient with chest pain, and as you talk to him, you will just know what is going on, and what studies and meds he needs...it will just click one day, same as any language you work at enough

Great metaphor, though third year might be a little fast for some of us. I don't think I'll be 'fluent' until at least part way into residency.

 

[getdown]

The way I look at the whole process is that there's just SO MUCH information out there currently about medicine, each disease, methods of treatment, drugs and just the body in general. So, yes, during the early parts of your education you WILL HAVE TO MEMORIZE a **** ton of stuff that is incredibly dull and more often than not will be completely useless outside of class tests. HOWEVER, that being said you will need to use your critical thinking capacity to properly use all that information you've memorized as every patient will be different and will respond to a therapy differently.

For example you're going to have to memorize different types of antihypertensive medications (which sucks) but than you're going to need critical thinking to know that you ARBs and ACE-Inhibitors are very good in diabetics with hypertension or that blacks respond better to diuertics rather than ARBs and ACE-I because they don't make as much renin as other groups or ACE-I and ARBs are bad for pregnant women as they can cause birth defects. The people you will see will have a combination of these problems and choosing the best drug requires A LOT of thinking and we haven't even talked about side effects or drug-drug interactions. But it'll all come together one day with continued practice so don't worry.

 

[cowme]

Great metaphor, though third year might be a little fast for some of us. I don't think I'll be 'fluent' until at least part way into residency.

That "clicking" moment where it all made sense didn't come till late 3rd year. You'll hit it too by your last rotations

 

[Perrotfish]

That "clicking" moment where it all made sense didn't come till late 3rd year. You'll hit it too by your last rotations

I'm on my last rotations 🙁. Anyway I know plenty of residents who haven't clicked

 

[thedoctor8706]

Some of my classes, like biochem or histology, have been just rote memorization, but honestly in my experience, unless you can apply the lists you've memorized for other classes like diagnosis, anatomy, physiology, etc, you won't be able to answer a lot of the clinical questions that pop up. I started doing a lot better on tests when I thought big picture AFTER memorizing, not one or the other. Just my experience so far.

 

[DoctwoB]

Med school = memorization

Medicine = applying memorization w/ problem solving

 

[mvenus929]

You need to be able to critically think in order to come up with a differential diagnosis and narrow down the possibilities. Sure, for most attendings, it's second nature by that point so it can seem rather cookie cutter, but it takes a while before you can get to that point.

 

[Captain Fantastic]

I'm on my last rotations 🙁. Anyway I know plenty of residents who haven't clicked

Amen

 

[cowme]

I'm on my last rotations 🙁. Anyway I know plenty of residents who haven't clicked

I'm going into radiology. We probably have different ideas about what we think is a sufficient level of clicking.

 

[Caesar]

That's one of the weaknesses of SDN. Questions clearly outside the knowledge of premeds is often dumped here for multiple reasons.

• A lot of the questions appear stupid or juvenile
• Each higher level wants to associate mainly with people/posters/topics that they're interested in
• It's gotta go somewhere. I suppose All Students is the graveyard of graveyards for threads though.

The "theory" is that med students and residents populate and visit this board enough to still provide helpful information here, but that's decreased over time as SDN has grown and become more "compartmentalized".

It's unfortunate because a lot of times premeds have questions that only medical students or higher know what they're talking about. However, the purpose of this forum isn't as much to provide helpful information (despite how we commonly tort it to be) as to provide an opportunity for interacting and discussing. Often we provide helpful information because it's mutually beneficial if everyone does it. Nonetheless, largely because of the vast amounts of stupidity in Pre-Allo, other forums become wary of premeds bringing junk to their boards.

Let's put it this way: If you were a resident and had started this thread, it would not be in pre-allo right now.

Just one point to make about this, all of the PA senior staff are Medical Students. We do read the threads, there are just a lot of them so we can't respond to all of them. The traffic in this forum is absurdly high. Questions posted about general inquiry from a Pre-med level are sent here for a number of reasons. The professional forums have significantly less staff and also the people who use the forum cannot check as regularly. A thread they might generally be interested in could be bumped off a page within a week when they next have an off day to read. I can assure you most posts made in PA are adequately addressed in PA.

 

[Caesar]

Thanks for all of the replies so far.

Would you guys say that potentially, you can go through medical school actually trying to learn and integrate the knowledge into a bigger picture? Or is it often the case where you're just finding yourself with so much to cram into your head that it's not the most efficient method given the amount of time you have to work with.

If you tried to just memorize stuff at my school you would find the exams impossible. The method for teaching medicine varies school to school. Many rely on memorization. Mine is about incorporation of things you memorized. For example an exam question might ask "What deficit(s) would you expect with a back up of CSF flow in the 4th ventricle. " You can "memorize" where the 4th ventricle is, what nuclei are around there and what those particular nuclei do in respect to their cranial nerves but it would be impossible to memorize every possible deficit you can have. You have to be able to incorporate them and "think".

In case you want the answer to this hypothetical question (and since I am studying for an exam right now) the 4th Ventricle is near the posterior pons so mesencephalic of CN5 would be affected, hearing and vestibular senses could be, micturition, you could have impaired abducens nuclei which would cause an inward gaze. Also the Superior and inferior colliculi could be affected at the cerebral aqueduct.

The point is, it is both. Hopefully the example shows how.

 

[Caesar]

I'm going into radiology. We probably have different ideas about what we think is a sufficient level of clicking.

I loled at this post.