Note taking tools/techniques/tips in medical school?

[Arjun Watane]

Hey all,

I'll be starting medical school in the Fall (not decided where I'll be going yet but I have a few acceptances). I just wanted to hear people's opinions on ways they prefer to take notes.

Do you use any specific software or app? Handwritten? OneNote? LaTeX?
Formatting and organizing?

Thanks

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[libertyyne]

I don't think I have heard of anyone being so masochistic as to use latex for note taking.

That being said this is a mostly personal excercise and you should do what works for you.

I would think very long about sharing your identity on an anonymous forum.

 

[Arjun Watane]

I don't think I have heard of anyone being so masochistic as to use latex for note taking.

That being said this is a mostly personal excercise and you should do what works for you.

I would think very long about sharing your identity on an anonymous forum.

Thanks! I'm new to SDN and didn't realize its supposed to be anonymous.

 

[JPSmyth]

Curious about this is well. Can any current med students chime in?

 

[PB&Jam]

Hey all,

I'll be starting medical school in the Fall (not decided where I'll be going yet but I have a few acceptances). I just wanted to hear people's opinions on ways they prefer to take notes.

Do you use any specific software or app? Handwritten? OneNote? LaTeX?
Formatting and organizing?

Thanks

Curious about this is well. Can any current med students chime in?

I'm entering med school in the fall as well, but, especially for the preclinical years, I'd imagine the best strategy would be to continue doing what worked well for you in undergrad, and modify if necessary for the increased workload. Why fix what isn't broken, right? If you do what you're used to and what worked, you'll likely be able to get into the swing of things more easily than if you try to reinvent the wheel. That said, if it's not working, take a long hard look at your note taking/study habits and figure out what needs to be changed!

 

[Ismet]

Wait until you get to med school and you see what your school provides. My school gave us spiral bound books of all the lecture notes for each class, and most people used that and just took notes in the margins. Some people still preferred to take separate notes too.

 

[sholamd]

What was helpful for me was taking all notes right into Anki. It helped me to turn the info into a question immediately to understand what was being asked, what was important about it, how we might be quizzed on it. If you do not know how to use Anki, it is probably worth exploring a bit before med school to see if it is a program that will work for you. I learned it before med school by trying to memorize some basic etymology and anatomy.