1st year DPT student(living in Orange county) needs tutor for anatomy.
need tutor anatomy
- Thread starter ocpt
- Start date
Have you tried asking the PT or anatomy department for a tutor? I know most programs provide some sort of help for free, so maybe you can do it without spending any extra money. More importantly, do you need help with the lab or lecture portion? For the lab sections, it has helped me a lot to just go in as much as I can (open lab, whenever). Make sure you tag along with some people that know what they're doing, so you don't walk out of lab smelling like formaldehyde for nothing.
Good luck!
Good luck!
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Anatomy is tough for everyone at first. It takes LOTS of memorization and repetition.
Do you need a tutor?
I think it really depends on what your difficulty is. If you simply feel frustrated because you go to lab/class and people can name everything off and you feel that you can't remember anything, then really, your problem is you are not spending enough time repeating/memorizing, while your classmates are. Unfortunately, I really think a tutor is a waste of money in this case because all they will do is just tell you what the structures are and what they do. If you can't remember next week it's because you are not memorizing well or repeating the material.
However, if you feel you have difficulty locating structures on the body, understanding their anatomical relationships, or differentiating layers, then yes a lab tutor who knows their stuff is useful.
Just remember: Anatomy = repetition and memorization
No matter how much time you spend drawing the brachial plexus, you will mess up the real thing if you don't find it on the cadaver. BUT, you will never understand it on the body unless you've drawn and memorized the parts.
So my tip would be:
1. KEEP UP with the lectures/labs. I would even suggest sacrificing other areas if you need to catch up on anatomy. It will take much more time to learn this material and you need that much more time to repeat it. So if you've fallen behind, take an "anatomy weekend", let yourself fall behind on the class lectures.
2. ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS read the lab manual before going to the lab. HIGHLIGHT key structures for the day. Grab your anatomy book and just quickly find the pictures of what you are asked to find that day in lab so you at least have some concept of what to look for.
3. Bring an anatomy text to lab. Our school gave us dirty 'lab books' just for this purpose. You will always need to look something up.
4. Make sure you've found everything you had to for the day before leaving lab. I found that many times other students would run out of time or want to take off early thinking they'll catch up later. Well, later other things will come up. You're in the lab. Grab the demonstrator and find everything before leaving.
5. After the lab, find 30 minutes in the day to grab your lab notes, and quickly glance over those highlighted terms and make sure you're satisfied that you've found them that session. Take a quick mental picture of these structures.
6. Read through instructor lab notes. On Monday-Friday, don't waste time reading the book and never take notes from an anatomy textbook. It is a WASTE OF TIME even if it works elsewhere. You'll just end up copying out the whole text. Sat-Sunday can be the time to read the text more thoroughly and look for those extra things you may have missed. By then you will already have a good base from reading the notes/labs during the week, and the text read will be a breeze.
Find the summary tables like "muscle origins/insertions/innervations" and read those, and look at pictures, lots of pictures.
7. While looking at pictures, take the time to understand the relationships of structures. Which muscle is deep to what? Does that nerve run behind the muscle or pierce it?
Then cover up the picture labels and try to name all the structures.
8. Trust me that your profs will cover the most important details in the lectures/lab notes. Don't waste too much reading texts/taking notes. Review LAB NOTES, summary tables, and lectures regularly.
9. GO TO LAB as much as possible! Find the structure and say the origin/insertion/innervation out loud. In fact, saying things out loud to yourself and your lab mates will be very helpful.
Anyway, these are some things I've found useful over my many years of anatomy in undergrad and grad school. I'm sure I'm repeating myself, but I hope it helps.
The key is reviewing and finding things in the lab!
Good luck and feel free to message me if you want more advice or have any questions about anatomy!
Do you need a tutor?
I think it really depends on what your difficulty is. If you simply feel frustrated because you go to lab/class and people can name everything off and you feel that you can't remember anything, then really, your problem is you are not spending enough time repeating/memorizing, while your classmates are. Unfortunately, I really think a tutor is a waste of money in this case because all they will do is just tell you what the structures are and what they do. If you can't remember next week it's because you are not memorizing well or repeating the material.
However, if you feel you have difficulty locating structures on the body, understanding their anatomical relationships, or differentiating layers, then yes a lab tutor who knows their stuff is useful.
Just remember: Anatomy = repetition and memorization
No matter how much time you spend drawing the brachial plexus, you will mess up the real thing if you don't find it on the cadaver. BUT, you will never understand it on the body unless you've drawn and memorized the parts.
So my tip would be:
1. KEEP UP with the lectures/labs. I would even suggest sacrificing other areas if you need to catch up on anatomy. It will take much more time to learn this material and you need that much more time to repeat it. So if you've fallen behind, take an "anatomy weekend", let yourself fall behind on the class lectures.
2. ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS read the lab manual before going to the lab. HIGHLIGHT key structures for the day. Grab your anatomy book and just quickly find the pictures of what you are asked to find that day in lab so you at least have some concept of what to look for.
3. Bring an anatomy text to lab. Our school gave us dirty 'lab books' just for this purpose. You will always need to look something up.
4. Make sure you've found everything you had to for the day before leaving lab. I found that many times other students would run out of time or want to take off early thinking they'll catch up later. Well, later other things will come up. You're in the lab. Grab the demonstrator and find everything before leaving.
5. After the lab, find 30 minutes in the day to grab your lab notes, and quickly glance over those highlighted terms and make sure you're satisfied that you've found them that session. Take a quick mental picture of these structures.
6. Read through instructor lab notes. On Monday-Friday, don't waste time reading the book and never take notes from an anatomy textbook. It is a WASTE OF TIME even if it works elsewhere. You'll just end up copying out the whole text. Sat-Sunday can be the time to read the text more thoroughly and look for those extra things you may have missed. By then you will already have a good base from reading the notes/labs during the week, and the text read will be a breeze.
Find the summary tables like "muscle origins/insertions/innervations" and read those, and look at pictures, lots of pictures.
7. While looking at pictures, take the time to understand the relationships of structures. Which muscle is deep to what? Does that nerve run behind the muscle or pierce it?
Then cover up the picture labels and try to name all the structures.
8. Trust me that your profs will cover the most important details in the lectures/lab notes. Don't waste too much reading texts/taking notes. Review LAB NOTES, summary tables, and lectures regularly.
9. GO TO LAB as much as possible! Find the structure and say the origin/insertion/innervation out loud. In fact, saying things out loud to yourself and your lab mates will be very helpful.
Anyway, these are some things I've found useful over my many years of anatomy in undergrad and grad school. I'm sure I'm repeating myself, but I hope it helps.
The key is reviewing and finding things in the lab!
Good luck and feel free to message me if you want more advice or have any questions about anatomy!
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- Mar 14, 2006
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Also, I forgot to add. Drawing things will help. What I used to do to review for tests is roughly trace the skeletal part of the structure (e.g. lower extremity) and then draw things onto it like nerves muscles etc. Some people traced the skeletal parts onto those clear projection slides with permanent marker and then used whiteboard markers to draw things. That way you can just erase and repeat, repeat, repeat.
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Try going directly to someone in your department first (your advisor, the prof, a TA, etc). They should be able to set you up with someone IN the program, who will be a much more effective tutor than anyone from the outside, and free. They have been through the exact course already. If you don't have any luck there, your university as a whole should have a department (usually called something like "Academic Advancement") that is specifically there to help students by setting them up with tutors and providing them with academic support.
Good Luck!
