 Setting for anatomy can be a pain in the sacrum, but not if you know these simple yet effective tips that we're going to talk about today. These are exactly the strategies that I use to ace my anatomy exams and practicals so much that they actually invited me come back to be an anatomy tutor. So we're going to break those down step by step. At the very end, I'm also going to go over my very simple framework, exactly how to learn anatomy, even if it's not your strong suit. And then how to master it. So we're crushing it all of your exams. So number one is to master your hit list for each lecture in lab using a two phase technique. Now, unless your course already gives you a hit list for each lab or each lecture to consider making one of your own as you're reviewing what content and dissections you'll be doing and what structures you'd be expected to find. My simple method is just converting all of this into a word doc. So that way you can easily just print it or have on some kind of digital device, but if you're in dissection lab, just try to consider printing it and just throwing it away. Then my easy two phase method to master all of your hit list, particularly for something like a practical, is to go to that hit list at the end of each of your lab. So if I had a dissection on Monday, I would find those structures with my lab mates, and then I would make sure that everything on that hit list I had found with my teammate. If I didn't, then I would make sure if a TA or an instructor could point those out or just simply asking one of my peers. So phase one is to simply find the structure on the hit list. But phase two is to consider using both other planes and other cadavers. Often the issues with things like practicals is that most students get tripped up when a body part may look different than they had done in their dissections, or maybe somebody had a cleaner dissection than you did, something you thought was a nerve didn't look the same on a different body. So phase two is to consider after you find everything on a hit list, either at the end of lab or when you come back later, when you're setting for your quizzes or exams for your practicals, is to consider just moving the body in different orientations. Maybe you're looking at nerves and vessels in the arm. Consider moving them this way. Some of the most common examples is when you're looking at the arteries of the neck of the carotid. Consider moving the head in different structures in different directions to see if you can still appreciate the relationships between some of the arteries and vessels and how they work together. And the second part about phase two is once you feel like you found all the structures in your hit list and have been able to appreciate them in different planes, now go to a different cadaver and repeat the process. If I felt like I could find every structure in whatever plane I threw it at and do it on two different cadavers, that way I could appreciate, you know, anatomical variations as well as just dissection variations. I felt very good in going into the practical and I was really rarely ever stumped up. I think one of my practicals was lowest grade was like a 92%. That's simply because I used this two phase method. So give it a shot on your next practical. Let me know in the comments how it goes for you. And as a pro tip, if you feel like you're a master BS or like myself, where you just convince yourself, you know something, but then find out in practical, you really didn't have a peer that you do this with having hit list that you guys agree on that this is the complete list and then quiz each other, move things in different structures. You can essentially nail both phase one and phase two, a practical anatomy learning using a peer who says, actually, I don't think that that's the structure. I think you're wrong. And then you can make sure you guys fill in that gap. Tip number two is to group structures and functions together. Now, there's so much anatomy to learn and memorize. And then somebody's expecting you to like somehow learn the function of things. Like, what are you a future healthcare professional? But all jokes aside, as hard as it is to identify and memorize all of the structures in the body, now trying to throw in function seems like a little complicated. In a second, I'll talk about a very simple way you can do to actually identify and memorize structures. But honestly, one of my favorite ways of learning anatomy is that to make it very purposeful. If I learn something, for example, the radio artery or the radial nerve, then not only should I know where it is, what nerve roots it's coming from, but also asking second and third order questions such as, OK, what muscle does this nerve go to? OK, let's do the tricep. What does the tricep do? Does an extension. So if somebody had an injury at C6 or C8, which are nerve roots that are part of the radial nerve, then what would that person not be able to do? OK, they won't be able to stretch out their arm. As another pro tip, because I enjoyed going to the gym when I was in medical school, a lot of times when I'd be lifting, I would think about, OK, what nerves are responsible for this motion? What muscles are responsible? What arteries are going to those muscles? As you start to identify your structures, you'll start to pair items and groups together, because then you'll be able to ask that last question that most students struggle with, which is when this goes haywire, something cracks, something breaks, something tears apart, what happens or what doesn't happen? So again, grouping your structures and your functions together, and then you can ultimately get to the malfunction, which is usually where a lot of our test questions get into without feeling like you're having to do them in phases. Now tip number three is to use something called a penny strategy. Now, a lot of times you may want to draw out a structure for anatomy, which is perfect. For example, a brachial plexus is something that most students in the health professional field, particularly in medical school, feel like they have to master it and it's so tough to do so because there's just so much going on. But not only do you need to master the brachial plexus, particularly when you're studying for things like boards and your actual exams, your professors don't really care if you can memorize this big plexus. They actually care if one, can you memorize it, but two, can you again tell me the function and malfunctions if certain things are going haywire? This is where the penny strategy works perfectly. For example, what you could do is activity. Number one could be, okay, let's go ahead and draw out the brachial plexus on a whiteboard, a piece of paper. Then you and a teammate or a group member can do this. If you like to work in a group study environment. So I would draw this on a board and try to see, okay, where did I trip up? I would erase this and then try to do it again and make my corrections. That is a simple strategy that we call the brain dump here at the MD journey. There are more videos on how to do that if you guys are interested. But let's say I drew it all successfully. I felt really good. The next thing to do is once I have my beautiful picture, or if you feel already good about your drawings, you can essentially just print out a good version of it like this and simply take a quarter or a penny and just simply put it somewhere. So we'll just use my cursor in this example and just say, okay, if I blocked off this last part here, what would happen? Okay, the axillary nerve, like what does that do? Okay, I think it goes to shoulders. I won't be able to do any of my deltoid functions. Same thing, the owner. Okay. So now I won't be able to make certain movements or I'll have some numbness if there's anything going on in my last four digits or last fourth and fifth digit. You can essentially do this at any part of the brachial plexus. You can do this at any artery, any nerves sheath in throughout the entire body. But again, we go back to a similar to face strategy. Number one is to be able to draw something out to where you feel comfortable that everything and its relations are correct. Once you get there, use a penny. Use any type of object and block things off and saying, what would go wrong here? This is a great way to say, not only do I understand the function, but also the malfunction. That's the second and third order question is that again, most students struggle with, you'll be able to nail all of them in one simple go. Now, before we get back to the episode and all the helpful tips, let's talk about today's sponsor, which is Kenhub. Now, if you're new on your medical journey, one of the most exciting but overwhelming classes to master is anatomy. Well, that's until Kenhub jumped in and made the entire process so much easier with their entire library of modules and videos on every region of the body, you can essentially follow along with your anatomy course using Kenhub to identify the high yield material. And even within a region, you can get very specific on what you're learning about lab the next day. So for example, if you're going to learn about the heart, you can go ahead and check out these modules about the heart using Kenhub. And one of my favorite parts about Kenhub is that they complement every learning style. If you're somebody who enjoys reading their modules, obviously include very high yield texts for somebody who enjoys videos, you can watch their very short but high yield and concise videos. And if you're somebody like me, and this is probably my favorite part about Kenhub and who likes to quiz and test themselves, particularly for a course like anatomy, that you can go through your module and then use their quiz function and essentially decide what level of quizzing you want to do. So if you're about to go into your anatomy lab the next day, you can do something like a basic ID and identify different structures before you actually go into the dissection lab. And then as you get closer to your anatomy exam, then you can jump back to Kenhub to do things such as their advanced ID, as well as their multiple choice questions and their Q-Bank that's already built in to practice doing second and third order questions. Now those by itself make Kenhub a great resource to master anatomy, but in addition, some of the cool perks that you get is you also get their resources on mastering courses like histology and radiology, which are very rare to find in other resources. So if you're on a medical journey and you want to master the course of anatomy, definitely consider checking out Kenhub. Our friends at Kenhub have also been nice enough to include a discount, which will be included in the link down below. So as always, thanks for Kenhub for being today's sponsor. Now, number four is probably my favorite part of how to really master anatomy, which is to use a three step process. A lot of it we've alluded to, which is mental model, ID testing and malfunction testing. So let's break down each and every single one of these. So step number one is to have a mental model. Now, there's plenty of different ways to do this, but since we've introduced Kenhub already in today's episode, it's a good example to use. Mental model is essentially being able to say there's all these structures, but the best way that your brain learns is to be able to make relationships with things of what's next to each other, how far they are, which one's more lateral or it's much more medial. And because Kenhub already has a built in atlas, you can essentially figure out all the structures, for example, in the upper extremity and saying, OK, like this is where the axillary nerve is and then compare that to like the scapular nerve is all up here. It's not actually down here. You get to start making a relationship. So then going into dissection lab, you already have a mental picture of where you expect things to be. Now, the beauty of mental models is that they always get corrected. So when you go into a dissection, things will start looking different or be in different orientations than what you had expected even after using a great resource like Kenhub. When you go to your dissection, now you'll be able to adjust your mental model. I actually thought that these were much closer, but they actually far apart or this is actually more medial. This is more lateral. Now you have a clearer picture. It's almost like looking at an image that's very blurry and then suddenly putting a glasses on and having things look a lot more crystal clear. Now, that's step number one, which is you understand the relationships and orientations of things together, which will be able to help you with the practicals like we talked about in the first tip of today's episode. The step number two is to practice ID testing, which is simply having some method that's effective enough and consistent enough where you can quiz yourself on, do you know where actual structures are? Now, again, because we're talking about Kenhub in today's episode is a great resource where you can just jump in to their quizzes that are already built in for each and every one of our models and they have both a basic ID and an advanced ID. So if I didn't know anything about the upper limb and I just wanted to give us a little quick practice, I could go into their basic ID and they would show me one structure at a time and saying, are you looking at the axillary nerve? Are you looking at the scapular nerve or something else? And we know just from that basic atlas that it's more upwards and it's not downwards of the arms. So boom, got it down. This is a very effective technique that you can do before your lectures, before your labs. It just feel like you have a basic mental model and then confirmed it by using ID testing. Now, the last step to really master your anatomy is to understand malfunction. Now that you've gotten a mental model, you've got an ID testing, everything's down. The last part that most students will stop at and really struggle at particularly for their multiple choice exams is that they struggle with these questions that are second and third order, which is like, this breaks what happens. And so you have to have a structure built into your weekly schedule, often what I'll do is on the weekend after I've mastered my labs, after I've mastered my ID and I've mastered my hit list, I will go to a resource such for example as Kenhub or Unki, whatever you want to use. But just for this example, if we use Kenhub, because it's nicely already built in, now you've gotten your IDs done, you can use their question banks to identify vignettes of what people consider to be important, kind of malfunctions. So you can get great questions on things like the brachial plexus or, you know, heart anatomy. So as we can see from some of these practice questions, again, you don't have to use Kenhub. That's just a recommendation, but you can use any Q bank and they'll have various similar questions. Nice thing about Kenhub is that they'll incorporate questions that are much more just fact you know it or not, which a lot of your anatomy exams will have, but then also you'll have kind of vignettes, which is like a so and so age person comes in with an injury here, a 15 year old, for example, breaks his China has his wounds, he's unable to extend his left wrist, like what's going on? This is amazing. Now you've been able to identify your IDs, how things are going, a mental model, but do you have both the function and malfunction nailed down? And if, for example, if I say, you know, I don't think it's the ulnar nerve or the musculoskeletal or the axillary, you can put all of this down. So for example, here we have a perfect example of being yet a 15 year old is just not able to extend his wrist. And now you can ask your question, not only do I know which structures are in that area, but which ones are responsible for extending the wrist and which ones could now be contributing to this damage or inability to do something. If you nail all of these phases, which is having a clear mental model, identification just nailed down and then being able to perfect your malfunctions. Now it doesn't matter if you go into a practical or a multiple choice exam, you feel pretty comfortable about your mastery of anatomy. Tip number five is to build yourself a very easy to follow space repetition on both a daily and a weekly basis. Sometimes the most easy things to do for me as a medical student is that I had on key cards for the dissection guide that I had somebody had made them. And if they didn't, then I made them myself, but now I had tons of images with image occlusion and basic questions of do I essentially know things or not? I would do those on a daily basis. If I went to the gym, got on a treadmill, which is rare, then I would just go ahead and do five minutes, 10 minutes didn't last very long on a treadmill. Then I would do those questions to practice my D on a daily basis. But this way things were always showing up. Even if it was a lab that I covered several weeks before it was constant on a weekly basis. I was making sure that I was nailing down my practice questions. A lot of those vignettes, a lot of those malfunctions really helped me when it was time to review for an exam to say, OK, I've seen a few questions that always talk about the triceps or the axillary nerve because those are functions that they consider to be important. Let's make sure that I nailed those down. And that gives me an idea of where to can think about the malfunctions, where to correct my mental models. And then most importantly, being able to address do I have everything on this hit list nailed down. And if you found these anatomy tips helpful to make sure you hit that like button down below, it just supports the channel. Or if you listen to the podcast, hit a quick follow or subscribe. But I will link down tons of more videos on anatomy, just studying as a medical professional that hopefully you guys will find helpful. And if you're brand new to the channel or you're learning like this guy has some decent tips, I wish I could learn more tons of free more content, not just anatomy that I'll also link down below. So my favorites include my eight step study process that I use in medical school for all of my courses, not just anatomy, as well as the med school success handbook. These are 30 plus tips that I wish every medical student should know on how to study better, how to manage your time better, how to just have a better outlook. So you're a happy med student while just crushing the game. And if at any point in your journey, you're interested in working with us, particularly for things like improving your grades and just succeeding on your medical journey, I'll link down below a few of our programs that we have where you can work with myself as well as our other study coaches to really get the results that you want, that way you can have the future that's less stressful. You also want. But as always, my friends, if you did enjoy this video, here is one video that I just absolutely enjoy about anatomy. And this video right here is the most popular that we have here on the channel. Make sure you guys check that out. But as always, my friends, thanks for being a part of my journey. Hopefully that was a little help to you guys on yours. I'll see you guys in the next one. Peace.