Overwhelmed by musculoskeletal

[Osteosaur]

After my first week of musculoskeletal anatomy I am honestly overwhelmed. I've had good success with anki for other subjects, but I am just struggling to keep up with cards for functional anatomy to the point I'm up until 12am on a Friday doing cards.

Does anyone have any better resources for the upper limbs and brachial plexus? Trying to keep straight which nerves innervate which muscles to act on what is just baffling.

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[Teppil]

If it makes u feel any better, this is by far the hardest part of anatomy imo. there are so many muscles and nerves going on, and they make it extra confusing with flexor/extensor ability. Just do what u can, the nerve supplies and knowing general groupings is most important for step 1. from what I've seen in uworld the brachial plexus and how the nerves run along the elbow and wrist are most important. for in house exams, just cram as much of it into your head and try to hit as many questions as possible.

 

[wanderingorion]

After my first week of musculoskeletal anatomy I am honestly overwhelmed. I've had good success with anki for other subjects, but I am just struggling to keep up with cards for functional anatomy to the point I'm up until 12am on a Friday doing cards.

Does anyone have any better resources for the upper limbs and brachial plexus? Trying to keep straight which nerves innervate which muscles to act on what is just baffling.

Repetition is the only way to nail it down. There's a bunch of mnemonics to help remember important things. MSK (especially UE anatomy) was (and is) notoriously difficult for me, but looking at Step1 materials, you will primarily be responsible for recognizing certain deficits (axillary nerve damage from anterior dislocation= deltoid paralysis+lateral numbness), but for now you are just cramming in a million names/locations of things.

 

[Terry Toma]

For the brachial plexus, I just drew the schematic diagram out a bunch of times. For the first few passes, I copied it straight from my lecture notes. After that, I tried to do it from memory and referenced my notes as needed. I was able to get the whole thing down reasonably quickly by taking a couple of minutes to draw it all out 2-3 times per day. Then on exam day, the very first thing I did was to draw the whole thing up for reference on my scrap paper.

Essential/complete anatomy is really good for learning the locations of all the muscles, but not so efficient for innervations or blood supplies. I just used the app to quickly run through all the muscles I needed to learn a few times per day.

I would limit Anki use to facts like innervations and blood supply. Eg "the biceps brachii is innervated by the [...] nerve and supplied by the [...] artery."

It's a bit intimidating to deal with the volume of information, but I think you just need to accept that you won't feel like you're retaining much at first, but trust that you'll get it all down before too long. The more frustrating it is to learn at first, the more satisfying it will be once you master it, which will happen quicker than you think with a good bit of repetition.

 

[KeikoTanaka]

If it makes u feel any better, this is by far the hardest part of anatomy imo. there are so many muscles and nerves going on, and they make it extra confusing with flexor/extensor ability. Just do what u can, the nerve supplies and knowing general groupings is most important for step 1. from what I've seen in uworld the brachial plexus and how the nerves run along the elbow and wrist are most important. for in house exams, just cram as much of it into your head and try to hit as many questions as possible.

I found the pelvic and lumbosacral plexi to be much harder... the arteries in the pelvis suck

 

[siliso]

Map it out your ownself, the course of the nerves serving which muscles, over and over til you’ve got it, on whiteboard or paper. And your own body is a cheat sheet too. I don’t think it lends itself so well to flashcards.

 

[Raney Schauer]

For brachial plexus there's a fairly standard "fishbone" diagram that you can draw several times to memorize the all the crossfeeding that happens. The diagram follows a rather lengthy mnemonic about mermaids and poseidon's trident, but the mnemonic is so long you may as well just memorize the diagram. Find it with a Google image search. Then there are some other mnemonics that help. Find those mnemonics and draw out those diagrams. Rinse. Repeat. Rerepeat.

567 wings to heaven
234 keeps the poop and pee off the floor
radial wrist drop
and so on

 

[TheIllusionist]

just keep anking. welcome to med school lecture preclinical education, a massive brute memorization contest

 

[naway]

Gross, there are schools that don't do the bulk of gross anatomy in the first semester?
Anatomy tried really hard to be the death of me. I'd tell you how I got through it, but I'm honestly still not sure. You will, though. 99% of students do. 🙂

 

[Osteosaur]

I appreciate the replies. I did not do so well on my first semester anatomy stuff so I am hoping to nail this.

For me its really the specific innervations/actions that get me, and just peeling apart the layers to find muscles that look basically the same. Really worried for the practical this time. Any advice on that aspect as well?

 

[KeikoTanaka]

After my first week of musculoskeletal anatomy I am honestly overwhelmed. I've had good success with anki for other subjects, but I am just struggling to keep up with cards for functional anatomy to the point I'm up until 12am on a Friday doing cards.

Does anyone have any better resources for the upper limbs and brachial plexus? Trying to keep straight which nerves innervate which muscles to act on what is just baffling.

Just be thankful you're not as an Osteopathic school, you'll know that Anatomy all right. More than you want. And you'll see more of your fellow classmates anatomy more than you want haha. (Although I enjoy it so no complaints here)

 

[KeikoTanaka]

I appreciate the replies. I did not do so well on my first semester anatomy stuff so I am hoping to nail this.

For me its really the specific innervations/actions that get me, and just peeling apart the layers to find muscles that look basically the same. Really worried for the practical this time. Any advice on that aspect as well?

Make a very specific Anki deck dealing with nothing other than the muscles and innervation.
Then, go to a software based 3-D anatomy model and see if they offer a "test mode"

 

[a5ie5lavida]

I appreciate the replies. I did not do so well on my first semester anatomy stuff so I am hoping to nail this.

For me its really the specific innervations/actions that get me, and just peeling apart the layers to find muscles that look basically the same. Really worried for the practical this time. Any advice on that aspect as well?

For practicals, ALWAYS look at the attachments of the tagged muscles. Everything looks the same but tracing the fibers to the attachments is your best bet IMO.

 

[Deecee2DO]

After my first week of musculoskeletal anatomy I am honestly overwhelmed. I've had good success with anki for other subjects, but I am just struggling to keep up with cards for functional anatomy to the point I'm up until 12am on a Friday doing cards.

Does anyone have any better resources for the upper limbs and brachial plexus? Trying to keep straight which nerves innervate which muscles to act on what is just baffling.

Organize it by compartments (ie anterior forearm muscles for the most part are innervated by median nerve or that posterior forearm muscles are innervated by radial). Then after you remember it by regions you really focus on the EXCEPTIONS which will help you remember the ones that are not-med school LOVES exceptions as you probably know by now. Try and focus on clinically important muscles more than others and if a lesion to a nerve occurs what will present. Look for patterns and relationships between structures and why things are made the way they are (ie why does the femoral nerve dive deep before the knee in the adductor canal? because you want arterial supply to pass over flexor surfaces not extensor or you will get limb ischemia phenomenon from bending). Also drawing out blood supply is extremely helpful trust me

 

[FelicityMD]

I also struggled on MSK using anki to learn.

What I did instead is I copied all the diagrams/pictures (mostly netters) from lecture into my notability on my ipad and erased all the terms/innervations. You could the same with the images from your anki deck. Then I would just write everything out a couple times, first just the names of the muscles, then add the innervation. Anki (any flashcards) give you disjointed facts but working with a single image, like all the muscles in the base layer of the forearm, and always working with all of them together gives in you information in context. This was super helpful for me and it also helped in all the other blocks. You can use anki to refresh after you've learned them in context.

 

[Quantal Reasoning]

I believe the real strength of Anki is not the flashcards themselves, but the scheduling, so I took advantage of that. This is how I made my anki cards and crushed every anatomy exam:

I would write on a basic card

"Draw out X and its innervations"

then on the back I would have a picture of that structure, and if I missed a single thing I would do it over.

 

[aldol16]

Draw it. Anki is less useful for visualizing things unless you also insert detailed images of the anatomy and at that point, you may as well draw it out yourself. It helps you remember. And Anki sucks at helping you remember 3D stuff.

Anki is more useful for the stuff you just have to memorize, like what innervates what and where the insertions are. If you know the anatomy and where things generally are, this becomes easier, i.e. you know that the radial nerve runs deep in the arm and thus isn't going to innervate biceps, which is much more anterior.

 

[luxaeterna6]

The Noted Anatomist helped me so much!

 

[Newyawk]

Kid: im doing anki nonstop and still cant get it. Help me sdn!

Sdn: more anki bro! Its the only way!

 

[Deecee2DO]

Randy Travis is my hero

 

[kraskadva]

I appreciate the replies. I did not do so well on my first semester anatomy stuff so I am hoping to nail this.

For me its really the specific innervations/actions that get me, and just peeling apart the layers to find muscles that look basically the same. Really worried for the practical this time. Any advice on that aspect as well?

Get back into the lab, now that you've got things dissected, and start pulling on muscles. Trace tendons and associate muscles with movements. Then if you can keep how the nerves run straight in your head, you'll know what does what, i.e. if it's in the same neighborhood, it'll ennervate those muscles.
Also, especially with the forearm, the name of the muscle tells you exactly what it does or where it is. It's just in Latin. So break the names down, look up the words if you don't know the meaning, and it'll be super straightforward.

 

[fldoctorgirl]

MSK was the bane of my existence...it was the class that made me question whether I even belonged here. It didn't help that it was our first 'real' class after 3 weeks of biochem, but anyways-- what helped me was just repetition. I made flashcards for the lab component and just drilled those every day. Drew out the brachial plexus every day from one of the many youtube videos. Drew out artery pathways, innervations, everything. I normally don't learn through drawing, but for MSK it was a must.

 

[Osteosaur]

Well, thanks for the encouragement everyone. Got a 93 on the written so that's something. Practical still being graded.

I anki'd and lived in the lab.

 

[DK0828]

I’m a soon to be m1 and I just wanted to make sure. You didn’t prestudy or have prior anatomy in ugrad?

I have no experience with anatomy and looking for reassurance that I’ll be ok

 

[Deecee2DO]

I’m a soon to be m1 and I just wanted to make sure. You didn’t prestudy or have prior anatomy in ugrad?

I have no experience with anatomy and looking for reassurance that I’ll be ok

You'll be fine. Most people in med school can handle med school. They have very strict admissions criteria and such low acceptance rates for a reason. If they accepted you, you can handle it. Very few people fail out of med school because they simply can't handle the coursework. Relax and don't pre-study. All I can say is see if you think anki works for you and get familiar with using it other than that just chill as much as possible