Lots of people emphasize the utility of advanced memory techniques
like the memory palace, also known as the method of loci,
or even simple mnemonics,
but how do you actually put them into use as a student?
I'm going to show you how.
What's going on guys?
This is Jay from a whole new MedSchoolinsider.com.
Really excited to officially announce the launch of my brand-new website,
completely redesigned from the ground up.
I'm going to be having regular blog posts from both myself
and a few different guest writers
who are either going to be other medical students or residents.
So check out the website if you haven't already.
So back to the video.
Deciding how to use these memory techniques
really depends on what kind of information you're learning.
So, apart from the medical school prerequisites,
the information you're learning in college varies a great deal based on your major.
I go over how to approach studying for each type of subject
in my how to study for finals video.
However, when you do get to medical school,
all those complex math concepts,
physics, and ochem - all goes out the door.
Medical school is almost purely rote memorization,
but regardless of whether you're in college or in medical school,
you will benefit from the method of loci and mnemonics for certain types of information.
So, if you guys remember from this video above,
my memorization abilities are definitely not my strength.
When I come across information that I need to memorize,
I like to approach it by one of three methods.
The first is spaced repetition using Anki.
I went over how to use Anki in a few other videos.
The second technique is mnemonics.
And the last technique is an advanced one called the method of loci,
which is a memory palace.
So, first, doing flashcards.
As you guys already know,
I'm a huge fan of Anki for memorizing information efficiently.
Most of the information I do try to memorize,
I actually just place in Anki in a regular flashcard.
Either a cloze deletion, or a simple card, or image occlusion, etc.
These are quick to make,
quick to review, and they work best for simple concepts.
This should be your primary method of memorizing information.
Next, are mnemonics.
They require a bit more effort to create,
but they offer better retention and recall for things like
Anatomy or lists.
For example, if you're memorizing the branches
of the external carotid artery,
mnemonics are probably your best bet.
Similarly, if you need to memorize a group of drugs under a certain class type,
mnemonics will serve you well.
Now you obviously want to use mnemonics that are memorable,
and therefore effective for you,
and this is going to vary from person to person.
So this means, you often need to make your own mnemonics
that you find personal and you find memorable
and that makes sense to you.
For certain concepts like Anatomy,
there are multiple mnemonics floating around
that you can also just try out.
I found that the inappropriate dirty ones are particularly obnoxious,
and therefore more memorable for me.
Next is the memory palace or method of loci.
For those of you who are not
familiar with this is where you combine the
information you're trying to learn with visualizations of familiar places.
Therefore, you're taking an advantage of spatial memory.
Generally, you move through the familiar place on a route
and this is more effective than just being stationary.
So, for example, you could imagine waking up
in your bedroom, walking downstairs,
and in the process of doing so, visualizing multiple events happening.
Each of these events is tied to a certain
concept or element that you are trying to memorize.
By having this vivid memory,
you're better able to recall the information at a later date.
Again, this is going to work best
for images that are really out there.
They are grotesque, they're obnoxious, they're ridiculous, etc.
These are the ones that stick.
This is also the same technique
that the pros use in memory competitions.
Now, I would only use the memory palace
for concepts that didn't fit well
into either regular flash cards or mnemonics.
If a concept was particularly difficult for me to memorize,
I would then go with memory palace.
The reason being that
the memory palace takes the greatest amount of time to create,
but it is also the most robust way to memorize information.
Now an intermediate method that became
one of my favorites actually was creating brief
stories that either did or did not have a physical spatial setting involved.
For example, to memorize the adverse effects of a drug like tamoxifen,
I imagined my friend's sister Tammy,
I imagined ridiculous things either
about her or happening to her,
and each of these represented one of the adverse effects.
And years later, I still remember them.
So, for the medical students out there,
a great resource that takes advantage of this concept
is sketchy medical.
I used it when I was studying for micro
and I found it very useful.
They have now expanded it to include pharmacology as well.
Lastly, it's important to regularly review
your mnemonics and memory palaces.
If you create them once,
you will not remember them on the test day.
You have to repeatedly review them just like
anything else you're trying to memorize.
So there's two methods I recommend in order
to do this and I used both of them.
One was that I created a master mnemonics
and story list in my Evernote account.
It can be a word doc, notepad, etc.,
whatever works for you, but in this note…
so this note had all the mnemonics and memory palace stories
that I used and it was divided up by subject,
I could then go and review this whenever I needed a refresher.
I would also occasionally teach my friends off of this list
the various mnemonics or stories that I used
during our group study sessions.
Sometimes they would use them and sometimes they would
say that hasn’t really worked for me, I'm going to create my own.
Regardless, in the process,
I was reinforcing my own stories and mnemonics
which helped me learn them as well,
so it's a win-win this way.
Don't be a gunner.
The second method was on Anki, that's right.
Anki, believe it or not, I'm actually not affiliated with Anki
and I don't have any financial stake in them,
I just really love the program.
So, I would take my mnemonics and my stories
and put them in on Anki decks.
This way, I was able to review my new mnemonics along with
all the other information that I was reviewing
on a daily basis
because again, you have to do Anki every single day.
So, if you do decide to use Anki for these methods,
I recommend that you make tags to indicate which
cards are either mnemonics or use the method of loci.
My two tags were mnemonics and story.
By having these tags,
it becomes a lot easier to identify these cards after you make them,
in case you either want to edit them or do a custom
study session just reviewing these cards.
So, alright guys, that is it for this video.
If you do have any questions or comments,
please leave them below.
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And I will see you guys in that next one.