A number of folks have pm'd me for advice about histo. I'm pretty slammed by inpatient IM right now, so my SDN time is limited, but here's some info I pm'd to someone previously.
As far as histo goes, what worked for me was to go through each lecture and convert any points that seemed testable into a two column format. For example, I would make a table in Word and on one side I would write: "3 layers which make up all cardiovascular organs" - and on the other side: "Tunica adventitia, tunica media, tunica intima".
"Tissue which secretes elastic fibers in tunica media? : Smooth muscle"
"Prominent layer in arteries? : Tunica media"
"Type of collagen in reticular fibers? : Type III"
More examples
here.
By doing this, I could distill an 80 slide power point into one or two pages of hi-yield, "one-liner" notes. By the time the test rolled around, I had "digested" all the lectures into a 20-30 page packet of bullet points that I would then run through as many times as I could, eventually highlighting those pieces I kept missing and focusing on them more. The real challenge with this system was finding the time to get through all the lectures and type up the notes. Each lecture took me a couple hours, so it was always a challenge to get through them all...
The histo book has lots of extra info and tables, etc that at least two years ago were very infrequently tested - maybe a random question or two per test - very low yield for the time investment. I was able to score an A in anatomy and do well on COMLEX/USMLE w/o reading a word of the histo text. Keep in mind that although histo is being emphasized now, in the big picture, most people agree it is the lowest yield subject for boards, and after this 10 weeks, it will basically just serve as a foundation for path.
The
pictures in the histo book and from the labs will regularly appear on the test, however, and should be studied.
These 10 weeks of anatomy and histo will really test your ability to process and regurgitate a lot of material. Since repetition is important to memorize info, my advice is to try to condense the important stuff so that you can make as many passes through it as possible. Doing questions is also helpful for training yourself to recall the info.
This 10 weeks will also begin to train you to "triage" the information that's being thrown at you. There's just no way you will be able to read and remember everything over the next two years, but the good news is that you don't need to. With some practice you will learn how to read a large amount quickly for conceptual understanding, while simultaneously identifying the hi-yield details you do need to remember. Getting bogged down in low-yield material because you're not sure what's important is a very common mistake early in med school, as well as during board study. Again, practice questions are helpful in guiding your energy to hi-yield material.
Hope that helps a bit. As always, your results may vary. The first three weeks and the first test are pretty rough for everybody, but after that you will start to figure out what works and get in a groove.
Let me know if you have any other questions or if I can be of any help.
M (depending on lab group) on all days except Tuesday. Tuesday may be earlier.
