I’m a mathematician by trade (well, ok. I’m still a student, so not much of a trade as of yet), and as is fairly normal for us mathmos I’m completely and utterly useless at remembering facts. Not much of a problem as long as I’m doing maths, but occasionally puts me into a bit of difficulty in other areas.
Now, this has recently become a more significant problem as I’ve started taking a professional massage course. (Technically massage therapy, but I’m more interested in it as a relaxation, etc. technique. Therapeutic uses are more of a secondary related interest). Among the things we have to learn is a rather large amount of anatomy. :eek:
Now, I haven’t done a biology course in a good 4-5 years. I wasn’t very good at it in the first place, mainly because of the aforementioned bad memory. So now I find myself having to learn huge numbers of muscle names, bone names, etc. and not the faintest clue as to how to go about it…
So, any suggestions? Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Do you have a visual memory? Then it might help to use pictures (hang them in the bathroom, that way you are confronted with them several times a day).
Or actually go over your body saying the names of the muscles/ bones to yourself, that way they don´t remain random facts but you have a meaningful association.
If you remember words better, try associating the names with something else, something funny preferrably.
Or use little rhymes like "the knee bone’s connected to the thigh bone, the thigh bone’s connected to the…”
I think connecting the words with your body parts is the best method, because you´ll be working on the muscles anyway, so this way you really know where each of them is.
Unfortunately no, a rather non-visual memory. (And a non-visual mind in general)
I’ll try the tip about associating them with the actual muscles, etc. on the body, as it sounds quite helpful. I suspect it will end up with me looking damn silly in the test, twisting around to grab various muscles to help me remember which one is what. Ah well, as long as it works.
How funny, my boyfriend is also awesome at math, but has trouble with word type stuff when it comes to memory.
Hmmmm, anyway there are a whole bunch of mnemonics out there for anatomy and medical type terms. I’m just not sure where to find them. Though I studied medical careers in HS for the “career center” that was decades ago, so I don’t remember any of them.
But I do know that there were little phrases similar to the “Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally” like in math.
Have you tried contacting the medical departments, and more importantly med students, of different colleges? That might help.
Is this thread causing the Potsie Weber “Puh-puh-puh-pump your blood!” song to run through anybody else’s mind, or am I just a pathetic child of the 70s who watched way too much TV?
I use index cards and quiz myself every day when memorizing taxonomy or body systems. It’s just drill, drill, drill, but it works. I also find that taking latin helps because so many body parts are based on latin roots.
And third, I explain each and every system to my husband and daughters because hearing myself explain it seems to cement it in my memory.
The only ones I remember from medical school are the dirty ones, and the ones that rhyme.
“The pancreas sleeps in the stomach’s bed,
With the duodenum at its head,
But only the spleen…
…gets any tail.”
I also still remember a friend 25 years ago saying to me, “A fib is a little white lie, so the fibula is a little white bone.”
Can you make up absurd or dirty mnemonics for the tough ones?
Also, if you can pick up any Latin tags from people who know some, many of the names reveal themselves as sensible. Trapezius is shaped like a trapezoid. Supraspinatus is above the spine on the back of your shoulderblade; infraspinatus is below it. Rectus abdominis is the upright (rectitude, uprightness) muscle of the abdomen. Latissimus dorsi is the most lateral muscle of the back. Stuff like that. Good luck.
My method is to photocopy my lab manual pages, color the pictures in with magic markers and paste them to my wall. I then frequently look at the pictures and read the names over the course of the day.
There is a great A&P coloring book you can buy that a lot of students find helpful. I don’t know who puts it out, but I’m sure it would not be hard to track down.
I was going to suggest this. What do you put on each side of the card. Obviously, the answer on one side, but what do you put on the other to tell you which part to name without naming it?
Just to be complete, kitarak, you go through the whole deck placing the ones you get correct in one pile and the ones you get wrong in another pile. Then you pick up the incorrect pile and continue. Any you get correct get added to the correct pile and the incorrect go to make a new incorrect pile. Eventually all of the cards are on the correct pile. This is ONE pass through the deck. Go through the deck like this 2 or 3 times a day for a short while and you will not be able to forget the terms even when you want to.
Those cute little phrases, just make it harder, not only do you still have to learn all the muslces, bones, and nerves, but now you also have to learn a 100 new needless poems!
There are no shortcuts, but taking Latin in high school sure would help.
Repitition is the only way, area by area, and by learning what each of those muscles, nerves, bones do(physiology).
You have to learn physiology anyway(what good is anatomy without physiology?), so just learn anatomy and physiology at the same time.
One thing that helped me learn anatomy was to photocopy diagrams of muscles, nerves, etc, blank out the names with whiteout, and quiz myself on them frequently.
I’ve always used index cards when I need to memorize something, and it works well for me, as long as I can get enough repetition. I would suggest putting the name of the muscle/bone/whatever on one side of the index card, and the location on the body (using a diagram or short description, for example) on the other side. Go through all the cards until you can give the location based on the name. Then, if you have the time, flip the cards over and go through them until you can give the name based on the location. That can be a bit harder than you’d think, but it really reinforces the knowledge.
Ah well, as long as it works.