Memorzing vs. Understanding

[rahulazcom]

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Since all of you have just finished pre-clinicals, I wanted your take on which approach is better for your pre-clinical classes and preparation for the boards in general? I have heard conflicting views but I wanted your take.

Thanks

 

[DOtobe]

Memorizing is bad for boards purposes. You will forget everything by the time it is boards study time and will have to learn everything all over again. (This is what happened to me, and it sucked to have to learn things twice.) Try to take the time and understand what you are learning in your pre-clinical courses.

(then once rotations start, most of that gets thrown out of the window 🙂 )

 

[Doc_Thks_JC]

Understanding is always the way to go. For board purposes, you probably can pass and maybe even do well with rote memorization but for clinical practice you must understand. So if you are going to practice medicine, you must be able to understand why things occur and therefor why certain symptoms are seen and vice versa. To undertand disease processes you must understand physiology and what goes wrong when physiology goes bad- aka pathophysiology. All of this demands understanding and not rote memorization. Understanding facilitates good medical practice and allows you to understand why you use certain treatments. Medicine fits if you understand it. Good luck in your medical training.

 

[Mumpu]

There are things you have to memorize: pharm, anatomy, names of diseases (i.e. pathology).

However, pathophysiology must be understood. If you understand pathophys, you can interpret exam findings an test results, and propose proper management even if you don't know the exact names or doses of the drugs.