subject: Just How Mnemonics Can Help You With Anatomy [print this page] While I was studying for my doctorate, I spent hours each night trying to memorize human anatomy, often finding when quizzed the next day that I could only remember fragments of information. I'm sure you know precisely what I am talking about if you have experienced studying using textbooks and had gone to classes. Perhaps random conversations will let you remember things every once in a while, yet the fact remains that you still do not have all the knowledge you need all the time. There is so much to learn about anatomy and it's overwhelming to absorb let alone remember when under pressure during a test.
Through anatomy mnemonics, myself and some fellow students were able to call upon our knowledge of anatomy at any time without flicking through notes. We would used mnemonics (psychologically proven memorization techniques, that is) to unlock our knowledge and remember all that we'd learnt. So the several weeks we spent of mind-numbing studying was lessened and was made easy by these techniques.
The truth is, anatomy memorization is actually pretty simple if you go about it the right way. Mnemonics give you tools that enable you to unlock a large pool of knowledge by drawing upon something much more simple and memorable - it's kind of like going to a single folder on your computer to access thousands of files. For example, with use of simple to remember lists, you are guaranteed that your learnings on each and every part of the human body is ample.
One of the first anatomy memorization techniques I learnt was a simple acronym - ABCD - to remember the thoracoacromial artery branches.
ABCD actually stands for Acromial, Breast (pectoral), Clavicular, Deltoid. I'm sure you'll still keep that in mind for the future days.
Some are quite fun. If I have to recall the different axillary artery branches, the mnemonics I use for it would be "Screw The Lawyer Save a Patient" - Superior thoracic, Thoracoacromial, Lateral thoracic, Subscapular, Anterior cicrumflex humeral, Posterior circumflex humeral - better than memorizing it as a paragraph from the book.
So in conclusion, I can say that the formula for a successful anatomy memorization is audio + mnemonics. It's pretty painful to carry your books everywhere to study, but it's easy to pop your earphones on and listen. With this, all you'll able to gain are less distractions and also information that are straight to the point and pure. If you really want to learn and are willing to listen, then I'm confident in saying that you'll ace that test with mnemonics.
