What am I doing? I don't get this.

[han14tra]

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For anatomy, I read the text before every lecture. It takes forever. We have 50 pages of reading for 1 hour of lecture sometimes. I feel like I'm getting behind and I have to study 10+ hours a day. The test questions mostly come from the powerpoint slides, but I feel like it is sometimes hard to understand the slides without reading the book.

Please help me. What should I do?

 

[engineeredout]

Consider reading BRS anatomy instead of the textbook? It'll be more concise and a lot less reading.

Personally I don't preread at all before lecture

 

[MSSM2013]

BRS is your friend.

 

[DoctaJMa]

Consider reading BRS anatomy instead of the textbook? It'll be more concise and a lot less reading.

Personally I don't preread at all before lecture

I would second the idea of the BRS anatomy book...Plus if ur school requires the shelf exam a good majority of what you need to know about it is in the BRS book. I have the book and I think it is great! Very focused down without all the jibberish of anterior to this but lateral to that junk.

Also, I give you kudos for prereading. I managed to keep that up for the first 4 weeks until all the other classes caught up with m (embryo, histo, PBL, and OPP). Alot of my friends skim over the anatomy chapter assigned to us, then they pick up the BRS book and focus on that.

 

[majik1213]

i think you will find lots of advice about how to study anatomy, and finding what works best for you will ultimately depend on you. My advice to you is first to relax. You aren't in the wrong for feeling freaked out, but trust me I think you're not alone. Acland makes excellent anatomy video tapes that very clearly show you the anatomy of the body. I found also that putting in extra time in the anatomy lab goes an absurdly long way.

 

[MilkmanAl]

I found that reading the dissector was the best way to study. Of course, it helped that Dr. Tank was my professor, so that strategy might not be as high-yield at other schools.

 

[studentologist]

The night before you have an anatomy lecture, see what area of the body will be covered. Then take a blank sheet of paper and write down the name of all the muscles, major nerves and vessels as you find them on Netters or atlas of your choice. I felt like this helped my learning process better than reading text from an anatomy book. Obviously you can't learn all of it in one night, but I felt like once I had passed through all of the "geography" I could follow lecture the next day much better. And when you're studying after lecture you should be able to learn the rest in a really time-efficient manner.
$0.02

 

[ChiDO]

BRS + Netter Flash Cards + Netter + lecture notes = A in anatomy

 

[shreypete]

I'm having the same problem as the OP with Pathology...reading Robbins Basic Patho....just a nightmare I tell ya.

 

[146233]

I'd second Milkman and recommend reading the dissector before class. Then listen to lecture, go to lab, and THEN try to read the book or BRS (I hated the anatomy BRS book). It should make more sense to you then.

 

[Depakote]

I'm having the same problem as the OP with Pathology...reading Robbins Basic Patho....just a nightmare I tell ya.

I found Robbins Basic Path really helpful... if you can manage the time for it, it's really worth it.

 

[Concubine]

stop reading the book then. There is more information than you ever can know, so it is all about prioritizing. Make sure you get the power points down cold, then the rest is all bonus.

 

[beyondbethany]

Night/Morning prior to lecture: Go through my school's online dissector with my Grant's atlas in hand, finding every structure and marking it for future reference. After going through the whole thing, I watch our dissection presentation video. ~1 hr

Lecture: take notes on the class powerpoint

Lab: take your time doing a thorough dissection - this really makes it stick, get help as needed

Post-Lecture: read corresponding section in BRS, mark any additional structures in my atlas, add any clinical correlates mentioned in class to a word doc for later study (this is the last thing I looked at before my last test - very high yield), rewatch dissection video. ~2 hrs

Week before the test: go back through BRS chapters, answer the end-of-chapter questions (this will tell you how well you know the information), rewatch each video a few times, review my clinical correlates list

Worked for me during first test block - kept my anatomy workload manageable but effective. So easy to get bogged down in an anatomy textbook - ugh.

 

[Bacchus]

I found that reading the dissector was the best way to study. Of course, it helped that Dr. Tank was my professor, so that strategy might not be as high-yield at other schools.

I found his authorship of the dissector we use somewhat ironic, but that might just be me 😛.

 

[phospho]

Make sure you get the power points down cold

quick Q (that might be stupid):

how do you know that you have them down cold? (assuming you don't have access to practice or old exams)

 

[MilkmanAl]

The best way I found was to go into lab and grab structures as I listed their names and any important relationships involving them. If you can do that with minimal reference book usage, you're in great shape.

 

[Nikki2002]

you know you have the powerpoints down cold when you are curled up crying in the corner from lack of happiness, sleep, and social interaction.

 

[MilkmanAl]

That too.

 

[turkeyjerky]

Stop reading the freaking textbook

 

[RoyBasch]

I never even bought the textbook for anatomy. Anatomy is primarily a visual study, I go through Netter first to see the relationships, then i look at rohen to get a better idea of what stuff actually looks life. Then I read the dissection guide and go to lecture.

 

[engineeredout]

quick Q (that might be stupid):

how do you know that you have them down cold? (assuming you don't have access to practice or old exams)

Whenever I get to a slide with a picture and an ass load of structures labeled, I copy it into photoshop, remove all the labels, put it back into the ppt, and then set up a self-quiz type thing with all the names put back so I can try to name everything as I go. Same principle with any lists in the ppts too. Same idea as flash cards, but you're making your own out of the material that your professors emphasized.

When I can do all of those, and I've looked through the powerpoints so many times that I can't bear to look at the same damn slides over and over again, thats when I've considered myself to have it down cold.

 

[physics junkie]

Watch Acland's or Wisconsin dissection videos before going to class. It will give you a better idea of whats going on than reading a book.

 

[MSSM2013]

quick Q (that might be stupid):

how do you know that you have them down cold? (assuming you don't have access to practice or old exams)

know all the arteries's origin and the things the supply. know all the anatomsiomsis, know all the muscle's function, insertion, and origin.

then you have them cold.

 

[Black Surgeon]

For anatomy, I read the text before every lecture. It takes forever. We have 50 pages of reading for 1 hour of lecture sometimes. I feel like I'm getting behind and I have to study 10+ hours a day. The test questions mostly come from the powerpoint slides, but I feel like it is sometimes hard to understand the slides without reading the book.

Please help me. What should I do?

I had the same problem during anatomy initially. I was studying for countless hours simply to play catch up. I solved my problem when I started utlizing the slides. DO NOT READ EVERY WORD IN THE TEXTBOOK! If your school is anything like mine, (and I'm sure it is) they often cover 2 book chapters in 30 min of lecturing. You'll be reading until your eye balls fall out to keep up. Use the text book as a reference, if there is a slide with minimal information or a diagram you dont understand then you go back to the book. Better yet, use the slide in conjunction with the lecture videos, and minimize the textbook usage. This method is time efficient, and is sure getting me through Med school thus far. It enables me to stay 2 to 3 lectures ahead of class. By the time everyone else is hearing the lecture for the first time in class, I've already been through it twice.

 

[ImBrianFellows]

I agree with most of what has been said already. I just wanted to add that I started out reading the text and finally stopped doing so a few weeks ago. I only use it to clarify concepts that are poorly explained in the notes now. Since starting this approach I've aced my last three lecture exams and last two lab practicals. I really wish I would have started doing this sooner because I would have easily gotten an A in this course. I thought it would help me to better understand the material since I suck at straight up memorizing long lists of words that mean nothing to me. I should have just listened to everyone from the beginning and just stuck to the power points! ugh. Anatomy is almost over at my school, so I have to pretty much miss nothing on the final to get an A at this point. Oh well, at least I've learned how to approach other classes. 🙄

 

[Non-TradTulsa]

Agree with what has been said about BRS Anatomy. You guys, however, didn't have the great Kyung Chung, PhD as your anatomy professor - at the University of Oklahoma, we did. BRS couldn't be an official class textbook - that's not allowed when the professor is the author - but it was all we ever used. At least when Chung was your anatomy professor, you knew that, if you could work the questions at the end of each chapter of Chung's BRS Anatomy, you'd do well on the exam.

Only thing about Chung is that apparently Korean does not have gender-specific pronouns. He couldn't understand why we were so upset that a question asking, "what is wrong with HER" had a correct answer of "testicular artery." Some of these errors (and some others) were missed by the proofreaders in the latest edition - but Chung's BRS is still the most compressed and thorough (and boring) read that you'll find.

Chung had students do most of the illustrations, and they're beyond horrible. Don't use them. I used to read Chung's and make cross-references in the margins to the appropriate Netter plate.

Your class is probably using Moore's. Don't get me wrong, I like Moore's (it was the official text for our class) and it's very thorough, but there was no way I could read it and ever be caught-up. I gave up in the first block after I got myself into serious trouble by getting so far behind. Great book, but there is not enough time to read it. Don't even try.

 

[coffeebythelake]

Course notes, Netter's, and Rohen's should be your key resources. Don't read textbooks. Parse them, and use them only to supplement what is taught in class.

 

[ILikeFood]

I love Acland Anatomy.