 What's up guys my name is Boris. I'm a second-year physician assistant student and today I'm gonna give you my three-step process for studying anatomy So why should you listen to me because I've always been terrible at anatomy in fact I've been terrible at biology most of my life, and that's because I'm just not one of those people who's really good at memorizing things I'm not a national merit memorizer, so when I got really motivated to get into PA school I knew that I had to figure out a way to drill this stuff into my head and do it fast So here we go my three-step process Number one make a handwritten list of all the body parts you got to learn Don't worry about what they look like or what they do just focus on the words for now Now rewrite this list at least five to ten times using a whiteboard if you don't have a whiteboard a piece of paper will do And I know it's really boring But I promise it's gonna pay off later and now if you really want that a that 4.0 Then you should also test yourself by covering up part of each term and seeing how well you know it I'm not telling you to try to be able to transcribe the whole list from memory That's just a little too much But the more comfortable you get with writing out these terms the more that association is made You know from the brain to the hand just being able to write all those terms the easier You're gonna find step two to be and the faster you're gonna learn Okay, step two so now that you're comfortable with all the terms You know what they all look like and sound like it's time to start associating the terms to the actual body part So this is where you're gonna use your textbook your PowerPoint slides or even Google to find good quality Images of all the parts that you have to learn just keep in mind if you're using Google make sure that you use good reputable sources like university websites anatomy websites, you know dot orgs dot gov's Dot ed use things like that try to stay away from the dot-coms if possible and honestly for me I tried to find both I tried to find as many versions of each body part as I could so I'd use the one from the Textbook, you know, we use netters I use the ones from the PowerPoints which ended up also being netters and then I try to find other pictures from the web Sometimes they be cadaver pictures. Sometimes they'd be like artist's renditions either way the more versions of something you can see The better idea you're gonna have of what the part actually looks like So just try to find like different versions different angles different ways of seeing the same body part and then increase your understanding That way your professor might provide these kinds of diagrams that I'm showing you right here on the screen I call them blank out diagrams. Basically, it's a picture of the stuff that you got to learn with the terms actually blanked out So you can fill them in yourself So your professor might provide those if they don't it's a good idea to make them yourself because they're very effective in helping You learn and you can just make your own using paint for windows or preview for Mac Now another part of step 2 here is if your list of terms is not already organized for you in a way that makes sense Here is where you should reorganize that list and kind of learn it in order if that makes sense So that way parts that are near each other are also grouped each other on your list So you're memorizing them together So for example if you're studying the muscles of the upper extremity and you're looking at your list and like the extensor Digity mini me is nowhere near the extensor Digitorium on your list and instead It's like grouped with a brachioradialis or something you got to reorganize your list so that it makes sense You know you want to memorize all the terms that are near each other so that when you're looking at the body part You can just see all those things together And so you should just take a few minutes to reorganize your list in a way that makes sense to you So now that you got your diagrams you got your list. It's time to study I personally don't like to study more than maybe five terms at a time because it's so easy to get Frustrated with anatomy and to feel like you're not learning anything But who knows you might be comfortable studying more than five at a time completely up to you for me personally I do five and by study I just mean look at your diagrams and try to fill them in if you don't know something look it up Then switch to another diagram try to quiz yourself again and just go through everything and I know the first few times are gonna be painful You're gonna feel like you don't know anything and that's okay. That's the process This is literally the process of learning this stuff You just go diagram by diagram term by term look everything up that you don't know and Eventually after a few repetitions five ten repetitions whatever it takes You're gonna know them all and you're gonna feel like a boss and just one thing to keep in mind when you get frustrated This step step two does take the longest Especially if you have to make your own diagrams that really does take a long time So just take your time be nice to yourself and just keep grinding Okay step three now that you've become comfortable with the terms in step one and you've made high quality Associations between the terms and the body parts and what they look like in step two It's finally time to go to the lab and put it all together And just like in step two We're gonna do a few terms at a time five maybe ten at the most Until you've got them down and then you move on to the next set of five to ten terms And I'm also assuming that in step two you took the time to arrange your list in a sensible order So the terms you're learning should all be close to each other So you should be making associations not just from the term to the body part But also between all the body parts that are close to each other on the body and all together It just makes it easier to learn everything So once you've gone through your whole list a few times enough times to be fairly comfortable with the entire list You can locate basically any part you have a pretty good understanding of where every body part is from looking at your list It's time to mix it up. You're gonna rearrange your list completely randomly So that now none of the parts that are close to each other on the body are actually near each other on your list Your list is completely randomized and now you're just gonna do it all over again You're gonna study those five to ten terms at a time until you're comfortable And with this if I haven't already explained it What I mean by study from your list is you're just gonna quiz yourself and maybe your lab partners You're gonna look at your list pick out a term and find it on the body on the cadaver or on the animal or whatever It is you're using depending on what kind of anatomy class. This is so anyway Just go through your new list completely randomized and just be more comfortable jumping around from area to area Because that's how your practical exam is gonna be organized. It's not gonna be like okay Station one is the entire hand and station two is the entire foot Like no way station one is gonna have something from the hand something from the foot something from the back However, your professors organize it. It's just gonna be random So that's what the step is really getting you ready for and another thing here for step three if your lab has more than one body Let's say you have three four five six cadavers in the lab and they're all gonna be used for testing You're gonna want to find every single term on your list in every single body. I know that's time-consuming I know that's tedious But the truth of the matter is every body is fair game for the practical exam and body parts can look totally different in different bodies Especially things like nerves and blood vessels can look totally totally different different sizes Textures thicknesses even like branching patterns can be pretty variable from body to body So you really want to make sure you find everything in every single body Ask your professor for help because honestly it can get pretty confusing But the goal here is to have a very diverse knowledge of all the body parts how they present in different bodies All right, so let's recap in step one. We got very comfortable with the terms Writing them sounding them out what they look like on paper. We just got comfortable with the terms in step two We made very high quality associations between the terms and what the body part actually looks like and then in step three We actually went to the lab and we got really comfortable with what all these body parts actually look like in every body That we might be tested on and just remember that for people like us who are not national merit memorizers Maybe English is your second language like it is for me Learning anatomy is hard, but it can be done with enough patience and hard work So go get your laptop go get your list of terms in your anatomy book and go get that 4.0