馃攳
The 8 most important study techniques I use in medical school - YouTube
Channel: Zach Highley
[0]
so for the past two years i've studied
[2]
more than i've studied in my
[3]
entire life at least one third of every
[6]
day
[6]
i spend studying that equates to about 5
[9]
000 hours which is
[10]
over 200 full days of studying over the
[13]
past two years now if i'm spending
[15]
this much of my time studying i should
[17]
maximize my efficiency
[19]
during these times of study so in this
[20]
video i'm going to talk about my
[22]
favorite
[22]
study techniques that help me study more
[24]
efficiently and effectively but before
[26]
we get into that stuff let's talk about
[27]
my first
[28]
ever sponsor for a video isn't that cool
[30]
i have a sponsored video i never thought
[32]
this would happen
[33]
anyway the sponsor of this video is
[35]
grammarly
[36]
grammarly is an amazing digital writing
[38]
assistant that i use
[39]
every day grammarly has a free version
[42]
with basic grammar and spelling
[44]
suggestions but upgrading to grammarly
[46]
premium
[46]
will save you much more time with their
[48]
advanced features these features allow
[50]
you to feel confident that your writing
[52]
is compelling and complete
[53]
it easily integrates into chrome or
[55]
whatever you use through a browser
[57]
extension download
[58]
now a lot of times when i'm writing a
[59]
blog post or writing a paper
[61]
i want to find synonyms for my overused
[63]
words and i can save time with grammarly
[66]
premiums vocabulary suggestions to find
[68]
more effective words
[69]
that make my writing more compelling
[71]
another great thing that grammarly
[73]
premium has is you can save time proof
[74]
reading and trying to meet the word
[76]
count on your essay
[77]
with grammarly premiums clarity
[79]
suggestions which remove
[81]
unnecessary or redundant words you can
[83]
get your work done quickly and save time
[85]
finding citations
[86]
with grammarly premiums plagiarism
[88]
detector to double check your work is
[90]
your own
[90]
across 16 billion other web pages i
[94]
personally use grammarly all the time
[95]
when i'm planning out these videos
[97]
writing web posts or writing emails go
[99]
to grammarly.com
[101]
zach to sign up for a free account today
[103]
and get 20
[104]
off grammarly premium help you save time
[107]
and work more efficiently
[111]
as a quick prerequisite the things you
[113]
do before you studying is vital my most
[116]
popular video is that video and i'll
[117]
link that kind of up here but briefly
[119]
these are
[119]
get a good night's sleep exercise and
[121]
have a good mindset if you don't know me
[123]
my name is zach and i'm a third year
[124]
medical student in philadelphia
[128]
so the first thing we're going to talk
[129]
about which i do a lot of videos on is
[131]
the pomodoro method so the pomodoro
[133]
method is studying for a set amount of
[134]
time and then taking a break for a set
[136]
amount of time this is a procrastination
[138]
buster
[139]
because it works the intimidating large
[141]
amount of work you have to do
[142]
into smaller more manageable clumps also
[145]
it gives you set
[146]
breaks for giving your mind and body a
[148]
break for a certain amount of time
[150]
and what happens when you take these
[151]
breaks is your mind resets and usually i
[153]
find that i perform better after taking
[155]
this nice little break
[156]
because if you just work for something
[157]
like three hours straight probably
[159]
all those three hours you're not going
[161]
to be working as effectively as
[162]
powerfully as you could if you broke
[164]
those into smaller chunks with
[166]
integrated brakes so what is the most
[167]
common strategy well the most common
[169]
strategy the strategy i normally use is
[171]
25 minutes of study
[172]
5-minute break 25 minutes of study
[174]
5-minute break
[176]
25 minutes of study 5-minute break 25
[179]
minutes of study and then you take a 20
[180]
or 30-minute break
[181]
then you can repeat these as many times
[183]
as you want but that's kind of one
[184]
pomodoro block
[185]
another great thing about this strategy
[186]
is that you can gamify which research
[188]
shows improves your performance you can
[190]
download apps like forest
[191]
and what forest does is for every
[193]
certain amount of pomodoro sessions you
[195]
do so say you do a 25 minute session
[197]
and you don't look at your phone you
[199]
don't get distracted you don't step away
[200]
from the focusing from the work
[202]
then you'll grow a little treat and then
[204]
as you keep focusing as you keep working
[206]
you'll grow more and more trees
[207]
and you can show off your little forest
[208]
to other people and see who's got the
[210]
biggest one and this video isn't
[211]
sponsored by force or anything like that
[213]
it's just an app i like personally i
[214]
like to try and complete about 10
[216]
pomodoro sessions a day now the most
[218]
important thing about this method the
[219]
most important way to kind of maximize
[221]
your gains from this method
[222]
is during these sessions you should only
[224]
be studying that's it
[225]
you're only studying during these
[227]
pomodoro sessions because there's a
[228]
built-in break right there's a break
[230]
that's coming right around the corner
[231]
which is when you can relax when you can
[233]
stop focusing if you begin to slack off
[235]
during these study times during these
[237]
focused times
[238]
it kind of reduces the mental strength
[240]
of this
[241]
partitioned time for studying it reduces
[244]
the conditioning you're building up for
[245]
yourself that okay when i'm in this
[247]
timer when i'm in this session i'm going
[248]
to work hard and i'm going to focus
[250]
if you start to mess around during that
[251]
session it kind of defeats the whole
[253]
purpose of the pomodoro method save your
[255]
slacking for this five minute break what
[256]
do you do during these breaks this is a
[257]
common question that people like to
[259]
answer well you can do anything you want
[260]
personally i think it's
[261]
best to do something that doesn't
[263]
include what you've just been doing for
[264]
a lot of us right that's going to be
[266]
looking at a computer or looking at a
[267]
book and sitting
[268]
so what do we want to do we want to not
[269]
look at a computer or a screen or a book
[271]
and we don't want to be sitting so
[272]
what's the best thing to do is like go
[274]
for a walk walk outside do something
[276]
active that doesn't involve looking at a
[277]
screen
[278]
my second favorite option is cleaning up
[280]
your apartment so i'll just like clean
[281]
my desk
[282]
area or clean my room or something like
[283]
that or what you can do during this
[284]
session is watch youtube videos or
[286]
browse the internet again i don't think
[288]
this is necessarily the best thing to do
[289]
but it's what i end up doing quite a bit
[291]
you can talk with friends and family
[293]
go get a snack or do some push-ups or
[294]
bodyweight exercises so what are the
[296]
tools what are the apps we can use to
[297]
kind of
[298]
implement this pomodoro timer where you
[300]
can get the forest timer which i already
[301]
talked about
[302]
you can get the b focus timer which is a
[304]
mac app which is what i use
[305]
or you can get this app called
[307]
self-control and this is a great
[308]
application because what it does is it
[310]
restricts your access to the internet or
[312]
certain parts of the internet and no
[313]
matter what you do once you start that
[315]
timer you can't get there
[316]
deleting the application restarting your
[318]
computer will not let you get to that
[320]
part of the internet or that application
[322]
so some quick caveats to this method
[323]
some people like to do the 50 10 minute
[325]
method so you'll study for 50 minutes
[327]
and then break for 10 minutes or some
[328]
kind of other mashups it doesn't really
[330]
matter
[331]
it just equates to about every 10
[332]
minutes of work you should take around
[334]
a two minute break so if you study for
[335]
60 minutes maybe you take a 12 minute
[337]
break finally and the most important
[338]
thing is this will only be an effective
[340]
technique if you make it an effective
[341]
technique
[342]
it'll only be effective if during this
[344]
time you're studying and only studying
[346]
bottom line is study in study break
[348]
increments this can be 25 500 or 50 ten
[351]
or sixty twelve or whatever
[353]
just study and then break study and then
[355]
break
[359]
tip number two is the feinman technique
[360]
and let's start this out with a quote
[362]
and this is a quote from albert einstein
[363]
if you can't explain it simply you don't
[365]
understand
[366]
it well enough well who is richard
[369]
feynman well richard feinman was a
[370]
renowned physicist and teacher albert
[372]
einstein and bill gates were actually
[374]
students of some of feynman's lectures
[376]
and why were they students of this guy
[377]
where were albert einstein and bill
[379]
gates students of this guy well he was
[380]
such a good
[381]
teacher and the reason he was such a
[383]
good teacher is he could explain
[385]
extremely complex ideas in simple ways
[387]
the feynman technique is exactly that
[389]
can you explain some complex topics
[391]
simply would a child understand you some
[393]
people like to say it imagine you're
[394]
talking to a five-year-old so here is me
[396]
using the feignman technique to explain
[398]
the feignman technique first
[400]
identify the information what are you
[401]
trying to learn second how would you
[403]
teach it
[403]
imagine explaining this information to a
[405]
friend as simply as you can
[407]
avoid jargon and prioritize brevity now
[409]
when you're doing this explanation did
[411]
you find anything tough to explain was
[413]
there something that actually you didn't
[414]
know how to explain in a simple way do a
[416]
little more studying rework this
[417]
explanation until it's simple and you
[419]
understand it
[420]
then finally try teaching it again let's
[422]
use an example from the master himself
[424]
when he explains inertia if an object is
[425]
left alone
[426]
is not disturbed it continues to move
[428]
with a constant velocity and a straight
[430]
line
[430]
as if it was originally moving now if i
[432]
was going to try and use the feynman
[434]
technique to explain something like
[435]
diabetes
[436]
i might do it something like this so
[437]
let's take a bowl of cereal for example
[439]
now when someone eats a bowl of cereal
[441]
usually there is sugar in this bowl of
[443]
cereal
[444]
and some of that sugar you'll use right
[446]
away maybe you'll use it to walk and get
[447]
up maybe you'll use it to do some
[449]
thinking you'll use it right away
[450]
but a lot of that sugar you won't
[452]
actually need right away so your body
[453]
says hmm i might need some of this sugar
[455]
later to go
[456]
running or jumping or run away from a
[458]
tiger so
[459]
i'm gonna store this sugar for later
[461]
that's where insulin comes in insulin
[463]
allows you to kind of store this sugar
[464]
store this energy
[466]
for later and someone with diabetes they
[467]
may not be producing enough insulin or
[469]
that insulin isn't working well enough
[471]
so what might happen with someone with
[472]
diabetes is they'll eat this more bowl
[474]
of cereal
[475]
but they won't be able to store the
[476]
sugar for later and so
[478]
someone with diabetes might not be able
[479]
to access this stored sugar and because
[482]
they can't access this stored sugar they
[483]
can't access this stored energy and so
[485]
they get sick
[486]
because this stored sugar this stored
[488]
energy is not only used for kind of
[490]
moving our body and jumping and running
[492]
away from tigers
[492]
but it's also used for our brain to work
[494]
and our brain to do certain things
[496]
this is of course an extreme
[498]
oversimplification of diabetes
[500]
but i hope it kind of made sense to
[502]
someone who really knows nothing about
[503]
diabetes and that's the goal of the
[505]
feynman technique
[506]
that you can kind of take and a
[507]
seemingly very complicated topic
[510]
like diabetes and kind of meld it down
[512]
into something simpler that maybe a
[513]
child would understand the way to get
[515]
the most out of this technique is to
[516]
take it seriously and use it
[517]
consistently i like to imagine that i'm
[519]
with one of my friends
[520]
and they're actually asking me to
[521]
explain it and then i'm explaining it in
[523]
front of other people so if i mess up i
[525]
kind of get in trouble right because i
[526]
don't want to explain something badly
[528]
it's actually kind of like making these
[529]
youtube videos right because i have to
[531]
explain certain things on these youtube
[532]
videos but i have to avoid jargon
[534]
and i need to make the explanation brief
[536]
so people don't lose focus
[537]
so i'm actually learning quite a bit
[539]
about these things when i'm making these
[540]
videos which is one of the reasons i
[541]
love making these youtube videos anyway
[543]
so what tools can you use for this well
[544]
one great tool is your phone you can
[546]
call a friend you can call someone and
[547]
just try
[548]
and explain a topic to them so bottom
[550]
line try and imagine explaining what you
[552]
just learned to a child
[553]
or someone who knows nothing about the
[555]
topic
[555]
[Music]
[558]
so technique number three is a not to do
[561]
something and i've made
[562]
an entire video about this before and
[564]
i'll link that somewhere in this kind of
[565]
general
[566]
area but you want to avoid rereading
[568]
highlighting and summarizing evidence
[570]
shows that rereading
[571]
highlighting and summarizing are poor
[573]
techniques when compared to other
[575]
studying techniques so what tools might
[577]
you need for this well a good tool would
[578]
maybe have a furnace for your
[580]
highlighters
[583]
study technique number four is what i
[585]
just talked about is use practice
[587]
testing and
[588]
use active recall practice testing and
[590]
active recall are kind of two
[591]
of my favorite three pillars of studying
[593]
so what are these two things well
[594]
practice testing is exactly that it's
[596]
taking practice tests
[598]
and these can be practice questions from
[599]
your teachers practice questions online
[601]
anything like that
[602]
an active recall is when you have to
[603]
work to recall something so when i ask
[606]
you
[606]
what is two plus two you kind of figure
[608]
out in your head okay
[609]
it's four even though it's a little bit
[611]
of work it's still work and that work is
[613]
active recall now say instead i put on
[615]
the screen across here
[617]
two plus two equals four now all you're
[619]
doing right now is you're just reading
[620]
that two plus two equals four
[622]
sure there's a little bit of work in
[623]
reading it but you're not having to do
[625]
any processes you're not having to do
[627]
any kind of working in your mind
[628]
because it's already given two plus two
[630]
equals four is already given you don't
[631]
have to think about okay two plus two
[633]
equals four
[635]
and then you get four brain is working
[636]
harder and you are learning more from
[638]
what does two plus two equal then
[640]
reading two plus two equals four when
[642]
you are doing a tough problem you feel
[643]
your brain working right when you're
[645]
doing a tough test
[646]
you feel it working but when you're just
[647]
reading or when you're just watching
[649]
this
[649]
video like this it's not as much work
[651]
and you can probably feel that for
[652]
yourself
[653]
isn't watching this video easier than
[654]
the homework assignment you did
[656]
or the test you did or the essay you
[658]
kind of wrote three words and then
[659]
clicked on the youtube video
[660]
probably is so what are some tools you
[662]
can use to implement active recall and
[664]
practice testing well you can use
[665]
practice tests from your teacher or from
[667]
the internet you can use anki for flash
[669]
cards i also have a video on like my
[671]
nine day study plan before tests which
[673]
i'll link in this area
[674]
but this integrates active recall
[676]
practice testing and space repetition so
[677]
bottom line use active recall and
[679]
practice testing as much as you can when
[681]
studying
[682]
[Music]
[684]
i don't think it's possible for me to go
[686]
a single video without mentioning anki
[688]
so i won't just as every action has an
[690]
equal and opposite reaction
[692]
i will talk about anki but all space
[694]
repetition is is exactly that you're
[696]
focusing on learning things
[697]
at different time intervals so if you
[699]
review topic a on monday maybe you'll
[701]
review it again
[702]
on tuesday and then maybe you'll review
[703]
it again on thursday and anki is a great
[705]
way to use this because
[707]
it applies these spacing intervals that
[709]
have been worked out by very smart
[710]
people
[711]
and also it does it all for you and you
[713]
can do flash cards and all kind of good
[714]
stuff so now just take this space
[716]
repetition technique and apply it to
[718]
everything you learn seriously apply it
[719]
to everything
[721]
you learn it's what the evidence
[722]
supports it's what top performing
[724]
students at my medical school do and
[725]
it's what i do
[726]
so bottom line use anki or other things
[728]
to integrate space repetition to
[730]
everything you learn
[731]
[Music]
[734]
tip number six is make connections and
[736]
i'm gonna reference something called
[738]
hebbian theory here theory is that the
[740]
more connections we make to a piece of
[742]
information the more likely we are to
[744]
retain that information
[745]
over time now this isn't an exact
[746]
science it's not a proven thing it's a
[749]
theory
[749]
the more we can connect our memories and
[751]
connect ideas the more likely we are to
[753]
retain that information for a longer
[755]
period of time so
[755]
how do we take advantage of this well
[757]
what i like to do is whenever i'm
[759]
learning something specifically on a
[760]
flash card or something like that
[762]
i try to make connections between other
[764]
topics that i've been learning
[765]
and that's linking these two topics
[767]
making me learn it better and hopefully
[768]
if we believe in hebbian theory making
[770]
this information stick longer
[772]
now this method could also be called
[773]
chunking but i'll go into that a little
[774]
bit later bottom line is make
[776]
connections between
[777]
facts and information in your brain
[778]
because it might help this information
[780]
stick around longer
[784]
the technique number seven is planning
[786]
for me planning removes stress from the
[787]
next day
[788]
provides actionable goals and lets me
[790]
accomplish more when i'm working it also
[792]
importantly allows me to jump right into
[794]
working as soon as i wake up instead of
[796]
kind of figuring out okay what am i
[797]
going to do what's important
[798]
and in general the more specific your
[800]
tasks the more specific your goals the
[802]
better so for example if you want to
[804]
study biology
[805]
a better thing than saying study biology
[807]
is oh i want to study chapters two and
[809]
three
[810]
of biology today oh i want to do 20
[812]
practice questions and i want to do 100
[814]
flash cards and i take it a step further
[816]
by planning out my entire week
[818]
on sunday in an app called notability
[821]
and what i'll do is i'll say okay i know
[823]
i have these certain things these
[824]
certain plans that i think
[826]
these certain things that i have to do
[827]
monday tuesday wednesday thursday friday
[829]
now i'm going to write down those things
[831]
and i'm also going to write what i would
[832]
like to get accomplished on those
[833]
individual days
[834]
personal and life events i like to use a
[836]
handwritten notebook or a calendar or an
[837]
app called notion
[838]
which i will be making a video in the
[840]
future are kind of everything i do and
[841]
how i use notion because i love it
[843]
bottom line try planning out your weeks
[845]
the week before
[846]
and try planning out your days the day
[848]
before this will reduce stress and kind
[850]
of
[850]
allow you to more easily jump into what
[852]
you need to get done that day or that
[854]
week
[858]
finally study technique number eight are
[860]
mnemonic devices and i'm going to
[862]
include a jumble of different techniques
[863]
that you can use that i use all the time
[865]
but these are kind of smaller things so
[867]
i didn't think they needed individual
[868]
subcategoric tools i use and the
[870]
specific tools i mentioned are actually
[872]
the techniques and strategies used by
[873]
the memory champions of the world
[875]
if you don't know there are memory
[877]
competitions where people have to
[878]
memorize like
[879]
decks of cards in certain orders or as
[881]
many numbers as they can in order it's
[883]
crazy
[884]
but what they use is these memory
[885]
techniques so the first thing we're
[886]
going to talk about are memory palaces
[888]
or imagery
[889]
this is why sketchy or pikmonic are such
[891]
popular resources in medical school
[894]
because they use this amazing imagery
[896]
this amazing memory technique memory
[898]
strategy for remembering information
[900]
and one way to do this is a memory
[901]
palace so in my apartment right now
[903]
right i can picture kind of the kitchen
[905]
area
[905]
i can picture my bedroom and i can
[907]
picture my bathroom so maybe if i don't
[909]
want to remember
[910]
certain topics or certain concepts i can
[912]
attach
[913]
certain images or these concepts to
[915]
different parts of this room so maybe if
[917]
i wanted to remember
[918]
a printer a soccer ball and an apple and
[920]
i wanted to remember those three objects
[922]
in order or something like that
[923]
okay then i'd do the printer first in
[925]
the kitchen the
[926]
soccer ball in my bedroom and the apple
[929]
in the bathroom
[930]
but that's not enough you need to make
[931]
it real you need to make as integrate as
[933]
many senses as you possibly can
[935]
usually the sillier the crazier they are
[937]
the better so maybe i'll picture
[939]
that my printer is sitting on the stove
[941]
on fire as i walk through the apartment
[943]
and then in my bedroom the soccer ball
[946]
has replaced my pillow
[947]
so now i have to sleep on a soccer ball
[949]
when i go to bed and when i go to the
[951]
bathroom when you think of a bathroom i
[953]
think of a toilet
[954]
so in the toilet inside is an apple
[956]
that's kind of weird why is an apple in
[957]
the toilet
[958]
so now when i walk through my my memory
[960]
palace of my apartment in my head i'll
[961]
be like
[962]
oh boy the printer's on fire on the
[964]
stove printer
[965]
oh there's a soccer ball instead of my
[967]
pillow why why is that there
[969]
soccer ball and i'll walk into the
[971]
bathroom in my head and i'll see
[972]
the apple inside the toilet and i'll see
[974]
that's kind of weird why is an apple and
[975]
a toilet
[976]
apple importantly this doesn't work with
[978]
concepts it only works with specific
[979]
pieces of information
[981]
it's a memorization technique this is
[983]
why sketchy and other kind of medical
[985]
school things work
[986]
so well for remembering specific facts
[988]
about bacteria and things like that
[990]
because for example one thing you might
[992]
need to know is whether bacteria is gram
[994]
positive or negative
[995]
and what they do in the image
[996]
ingeniously so is they just make the
[998]
image
[999]
purple if it's gram-positive or like
[1001]
more red if it's gram-negative
[1002]
the next mnemonic technique is acronyms
[1004]
one acronym i don't think i'll ever
[1005]
forget is roy g biv and these are just
[1007]
the wavelengths of the visible colors of
[1009]
light
[1010]
so r is red and this is the lowest
[1012]
wavelength and v
[1013]
is violet and this is the highest
[1014]
wavelength and all an acronym is is just
[1016]
using the first letter of a set of words
[1018]
or a word couple words
[1020]
to remember certain information next
[1021]
there's something called acrostics
[1023]
and acrostics is similar to acronyms
[1026]
except it uses the first letter of a set
[1028]
of words to remember something just to
[1030]
make this medical oriented the one
[1031]
medical
[1032]
acrostic that i remember from medical
[1033]
school is some anatomists like effing
[1036]
over
[1037]
poor medical students and these are just
[1039]
branches of the external carotid artery
[1041]
finally we have chunking and chunking is
[1043]
exactly that it's just chunking
[1044]
information into more manageable block
[1046]
what do you think is an easier way to
[1048]
remember these random ten numbers two
[1049]
three four four
[1051]
eight three o nine eight o or two three
[1053]
four
[1055]
four eight three o nine eight o it's
[1057]
easier to do the
[1058]
chunking
[1063]
but that's it those are eight techniques
[1065]
that i've used consistently in the past
[1067]
two years of medical school
[1068]
and i've kind of learned over the past
[1070]
nine years of higher education that have
[1071]
helped me immensely with my performance
[1073]
and understanding and retaining
[1074]
information that is it
[1075]
thank you so much for watching and i
[1077]
will see you in the next
Most Recent Videos:
You can go back to the homepage right here: Homepage