Neurohelltomy

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Blues003

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Hi there!

My name is Miguel. I'm a 19-year old boy, currently taking Neuroanatomy as one of various subjects, at my 2nd year of med school, in Faculty of Medicine of University of Oporto (FMUP, at Portugal). Problem is, I'm having this Neuroanatomy exam and I feel extremely demotivated to study such subject. I find it boring, without that much interest in practical terms, at least for what it is demanded that we know. Indeed, the teachers think Neuroanatomy is the 2nd most important subject in medical school (the first being Anatomy), while despising Physiology and other fulcral subjects.

The fact that I'm so tired of this subject, along with finding it extremely overrated, hard, tedious, and uninteresting, makes me feel demotivated. Indeed, my memory is already sucky enough as it is. I know for sure I will fail the exam, but there is a second opportunity in February and I want to give all I can then. But I need motivation. I need something to struggle for. I need to at least not want not to throw the books against the wall and shout "screw it". So yeah, I wanted to know what kind of advice you guys could give me...

Yours,

Miguel
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There are tons of things in medicine that you will not like and will find "tedious" but they are a means to an end. You are not in a position with your limited knowledge to know even what you don't know let alone what is important or not important. Your professors are charged with setting the requirements for you and thus you have to either trust their judgment or get yourself into a situation where neuroanatomy doesn't go away but keeps hanging around because you don't get it mastered and move on.

With that being said, the clock is ticking and you can meet your challenges head on. Believe me, I didn't enjoy biostats and epidemiology in medical school but I moved through it with the promise that I would celebrate at the end. If nothing else, I could look forward to the party. I also tried to glean as much useful info from the subject matter as possible. In the end, I have a firm grasp of evidence-based medicine which is necessary to my current practice.

I have always found that I was more efficient when I studied the things that I liked least before I worked on the things that I enjoyed. If you keep putting off mastery of this subject, you start to dig a hole that you just have to get out of. In short, if you want to make this go away, get it studied right off the bat and move on.
 
I agree that indeed my knowledge is very limited, but regardless of that, some of the things are pure common sense. I mean, knowing how to do a neurologic exam is important. So is to understand why the neurologic exam is done in a certain, and why it reflects internal problemas. But for example, what is the use of knowing that around 5.3% of the caucasian population has a circle of Willis in which the initial segment of the right anterior cerebral artery is hypoplastic, and both anterior cerebral arterires arise from the left internal carotid? I dunno, knowing this kind of excruciating detail kinda makes me laugh. It sounds too ridiculous to be true. And - seriously - 70% of the exam questions are like this. They ask not what is important, but what they doubt we know (the teacher said it himself during classes).

Your idea is indeed a good one. The sooner I get done with it, the sooner I get done with it. Problem is, I already emptied that idea's "energy". My motivation for this was only that, and nothing more. Now I know I will fail this first exam attempt. I can't wait though. From this monday on, I get to study other subjects, like Physiology, Genetics, or Preventive Medicine. That is actually interesting. But I need to think of ways to get REALLY concentrated on Neuro, to find ways not to popstone it... Do you have any tips you could givce me? :\
 
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I haven't taken neuroscience or neuroanatomy in medschool yet, however I did take it in undergrad. I love it:love: Anyways, here is a site with some good resources. I used some of them in undergrad and since that school uses the site for both the undergrad neuroscience program and the medical school neuro courses I'm hoping that it will be helpful. It's from the University of Toronto in Canada. Neuronotes.

Lys
 
Tomorrow is the practical exam. It consists of 13 tables. In each table there are 2 anatomical pieces, except on the last one, where there is only one, thus getting a total of 25 pieces. Each piece has a tiny white arrow pointing to a structure we have to nominate. We have 1 minute per table. Every minute a ring bells, and we must move on to the next table. In order to pass, we must get at least 19 of them right. (In anatomy there were 35 pieces, and we had to get 25 right).

I know I do not know all neuroanatomy I should in order to pass the exam. And I can fail this exam and still make the exam in February. But I decided to try something. I had one day left (the day of today) to learn neuro, so instead of studying neuro, I studied the exam of neuro. In other words, I saw which structures are more commonly asked in previous years, and went to check them on atlas, Gray's anatomy, my neuroanatomy book, internet images, etcetra.

If I miracously manage to pass tomorrow, then I'll study all night long exams from previous years, and memorize questions and answers for my theorical exam. It's 50 questions per exam, each question divided into 2 sub-questions, and each of the sub-questions asks for 4 different things. So that makes around 400 short-questions per exam. But I don't care. I will give it all to pass this and never have to worry about Neuro ever again...!!! Tomorrow I'll post here if I managed to pass the practical exam or what.
 
Blues003 said:
But I decided to try something. I had one day left (the day of today) to learn neuro, so instead of studying neuro, I studied the exam of neuro. In other words, I saw which structures are more commonly asked in previous years, and went to check them on atlas, Gray's anatomy, my neuroanatomy book, internet images, etcetra.
Click to expand...

Umm...welcome to med school. No wait, strike that, welcome to school, period.

This is an incredibly common technique called "high-yield studying" - you focus your studies on the material most likely to be on the test. We all do it.
 
Yeah, the thing is that I'm not just focusing on what is going to be asked, I'm focusing on the questions themselves.
 
So yeah. Epic phail. I'll start making prophecies. It has been like this on both semesters of the past year: fail at the 1st try of anatomy, then pass on the 2nd. Oh well, as long as I pass it...

Now I'll study other subjects. Preventive Medicine, Genetics, Physiology, Histology, and Medic Psychology await me before I embrace Neuro again.

I just found it funny they actually managed to point out with an arrow in horrible-quality pieces something such as the solitary nucleus. But oh well.
 
OP, we probably can't help you to like neuro although maybe if you found someone to study with and likes it it might be contagious. It was just about the only class first year that I DID like, but biochem was definitely my downfall. Most professors think their subject is the most important, so get used to that! In a way, that's kind of a good thing, because it probably means they want to help you like it and learn it. (HINT! ;) )

You might get more help if you could get more specific about the parts of neuro that give you trouble?
 
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