Mnemonic devices (or other memory-associations)

Many of my friends have just started medical school and they all have to memorize copious amounts of literature.  How do they do it?  Part of it is just sitting down and reading stuff.  Part of it is putting it into the context of their own bodies or the bodies of their future patients - the brachiocephalic trunk will go to the arm – “brachi”- and the head – “cephalo.”  And there is also one more component – witty medical mnemonics.  So to memorize the branches of the superior thyroid artery, students remember “May I Softly Squeeze Charlie’s Girl?” for the muscular, infrahyoid, suprasomething, etc.

Memorization by association is much more efficient that trying to memorize vocabulary from scratch. The best vocab books are those that use a picture or a comic and relate the words to it.  These cartoon books usually also have some kind of witty or rhyming word which you can relate the definition to.  So to remember the word Alienate, think of an alien who is “estranged” or who "doesn’t fit in" on the planet Earth.  Or to remember the word Ornate, think of a Christmas ornament which is “highly decorated” and “sumptuously adorned.”  I usually have my students make up their own mnemonic comics and share them with the class.  The more creative and artistic they get, the more they remember the word.

Some other resources

Some other resources I found helpful were the novelization approaches to the SAT.  I read the Tooth and Nail novel by Charles Ellster and Joseph Elliot and made lists with the words I didn’t know.  My favorite resource was the Vocabulary Cartoons series written by the Burchers -  it’s rather difficult to find in bookstores, but you shouldn’t have trouble getting it somewhere online.  Barron’s and Princeton Review both made their own knock-offs, but in my opinion, they don’t even compare in quality.  Anyways, these cartoons are rhyming or word-association mnemonics and reading the book through once, I was able to remember over half the words.  That’s quite a feat thinking about how many times I’d have to go through lists to remember some words.  Of course there are so many other lists and “hot words” sets.  Kaplan has a flip through book which many students have told me was successful.  Bottom line is, start somewhere.

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