Tape recording lectures in med school?

[beponychick]

To current med students:

I am doing my masters right now, and I find that taping the actual lecture and then transcribing the lecture (word for word) really helps me in learning the material. Is this totally unrealistic for med school? It takes me a great deal of time to transcribe each lecture because I have to stop and rewind the tape, but listening to the same thing said multiple times really makes the information stick. If I was to bring a tape recorder to class, would people look at me funny?

Thanks guys....

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[Blade28]

Definitely would take too much time - if you have even 3-4 hours of lecture a day, you'd spend WAY too long transcribing. When would you read?

 

[beponychick]

Definitely would take too much time - if you have even 3-4 hours of lecture a day, you'd spend WAY too long transcribing. When would you read?

Pardon my ignorance, but is it absolutely necessary to read? I hear that most exam questions are taken right from the lectures so if I transcribe them and fully understand and memorize the material, can I just use the textbooks to fill in the gaps?

Also, I know that several schools have transcription services. How do these work? Do students actually come in and tape the lectures and transcribe them? That would be in essence, what I would do. I feel that the actual process of transcribing a lecture is very beneficial for me.

Thanks so much for your help.

 

[Syranope2]

here's how the transcribing service works at my school:

at the beginning of the year, you pay $70 to be involved in the service and have access to the transcripts. every lecture is taped and then trancribed by a student. each student must transcribe six lectures over the course of the year. any remaining lectures are outsourced to students who sign up to do them for $30 per lecture hour. also, if you don't want to transcribe your assigned lectures, you can also find an outsourcer and pay them $30 per lecture hour. the transcripts are finished within 3 days of the lecture and then posted online.

starting this year, we also have audio mp3 files online for every lecture as well, so both the audio and the written version are available to everyone who signs up.


i get a lot out of transcribing and i usually sign up to do 5-6 every block, which has netted me a pretty penny in addition to helping me learn things. that said, i am a very fast transcriber (2-2.5 hours per lecture hour) and i still could never even come close to transcribing everything. unless you are a completely, 100% audio learner who would never have to study a lecture again after having transcribed it, you'd be hard pressed to find enough time to transcribe every lecture and study as well.

 

[Law2Doc]

To current med students:

I am doing my masters right now, and I find that taping the actual lecture and then transcribing the lecture (word for word) really helps me in learning the material. Is this totally unrealistic for med school? It takes me a great deal of time to transcribe each lecture because I have to stop and rewind the tape, but listening to the same thing said multiple times really makes the information stick. If I was to bring a tape recorder to class, would people look at me funny?

Thanks guys....

As a prior poster suggested, a lot of med schools offer transcription services so that you can get close to the word for word transcript of the lecture. Other places (most I have seen) also just film or tape the lecture and stick it right on the computer (AVI or MP3), so you can download it. In either case you will have access to the lecture without bringing in a tape recorder. Thus people would look at you funny if you brought in one (no one ever does this). In either case, as the prior posters have suggested, you probably won't have time to do a word for word transcription on your own. The key to learning medical school material is repitition. Rather than self transcribe over a lot of time and get through the material once, albeit thoroughly, most people find it more productive to read through it multiple times. By the third or fourth time, stuff actually starts to stick.
On top of the lecture, in most places the professors give out a set of notes that you also need to know. So you are right that most of the time you won't be reading the actual textbook other than as a reference in a lot of schools (perhaps all). But to honor, you sometimes will need to know some things that were in the notes but not necessarilly more than a sidenote or quick reference in the lecture.

 

[avantsp]

If it works for you, kudos, however transcribing would be very, very time consuming. This may be a good time to develop your own form of shorthand. You aren't going to be learning via the lecture format all the time, so what will happen to this sytem then?

 

[njbmd]

Pardon my ignorance, but is it absolutely necessary to read? I hear that most exam questions are taken right from the lectures so if I transcribe them and fully understand and memorize the material, can I just use the textbooks to fill in the gaps?

Also, I know that several schools have transcription services. How do these work? Do students actually come in and tape the lectures and transcribe them? That would be in essence, what I would do. I feel that the actual process of transcribing a lecture is very beneficial for me.

Thanks so much for your help.

Hi there,
Medical school exam questions come from syllabus, textbook, lectures or any handouts, papers, computer projects etc. that you have been assigned to read. Anything that is assigned to you on your syllabus is fair game for being examined upon.

You do not have time to transcribe lectures and at most schools, there is a transcription service or video taped lectures are available to you. There is far too much material to be digested and assimulated for you to be wasting time transcribing lectures.

The best "scribe service" is a student-run note taking service. The notes are typed and delivered to you the next day. Again, if you wait for a scribe service, you will have lost valuable study time.

You are going to find that medical school is far different from anything that you have done undergraduate or graduate. The amount of material that you need to master is huge. How you get that done quickly is up to you but you are going to find that you do not have much time to re-write class notes that may not be that important.

njbmd

 

[deuist]

You could try audio --> text software. Some people at my school have tried it and got decent results. You'll still get plenty of misspelled words with oddly placed punctuation.

 

[Blade28]

As njbmd said, you really can't just rely on listening to your own recordings and transcribing the lectures. I mean, it's not impossible, but man that would just take too long.

Don't forget all the lectures that require learning from images - anatomy, neurology, histology, pathology, etc.

 

[Law2Doc]

Don't forget all the lectures that require learning from images - anatomy, neurology, histology, pathology, etc.

Just set up an easel and start sketching. You could be the next Netter.

 

[Blade28]

There you go.