Learning to Learn as a Medical Student

By: Alyssa B. Smith, third-year medical student, Chicago Medical School I began at Chicago Medical School believing the notion that my study methods had gotten me into medical school, so they could therefore get me through medical school. I quickly realized that was a false perception. The volume of material, necessity to retain this material past each exam, and building of knowledge requires stronger learning methods than those I had used in the past, like relying on flashcards to memorize topics. That’s when I turned to the six study strategies—including spaced practice, interleaving, and elaborate integration—I had been given not only by my sister Megan Sumeracki, a cognitive psychologist who captured them in a recent Academic Medicine Last Page, but also by the Office of Academic Support. During a seminar at my medical school orientation, the faculty warned us that while we were all top students, medical school is extremely challenging, and what we were doing before may not lead to the same results in the medical program. Instead, we should adopt a set of six study strategies that are evidence-based.  Now, I integrate all six into my studying. To incorporate these learning strategies, I created study schedules at the beginning of each week, switching between at least two separate topics, like anatomy and physiology each day to practice interleaving, and each topic on multiple days to accomplish spaced practice. I found that I could combine retrieval and elaboration...
Source: Academic Medicine Blog - Category: Universities & Medical Training Authors: Tags: Featured Trainee Perspective assessment medical education medical students Source Type: blogs