How to Read Big Medical Books Effectively?
Read Big Medical Books Effectively - If you are a medical student then you will be reading a lot of big books. And the problem you will be facing is like not retaining much information or something like Time management. This article will explain to you a very effective method to read big medical books, also retaining information effectively.
Method for Reading Big Medical Books
A medical student has to read big Gold-Standard Medical books for getting good grades. But not every student manages to reach that point, it's just a matter of the way of reading that book.
This method consists of 9 Steps that you have to follow for getting maximum information from reading big Gold-Standard Books. All these steps are explained below one by one:
1) Pre-conditioning of Mind
Let's take an example if you want to bake a Cake, and two ovens are there in front of you. One is at room temperature, and the other is preheated. In which oven you will bake it? Either, in one at room temperature or other, that is preheated? Definitely, you will go with preheated Oven because it will give better and quicker results.
10 Best Study Tips that will change your life
The same is the case with Reading big Gold-Standard books. A number of students start to read these big books, but give up on reading. The reasons behind this are:
- The language of these books is very complex
- These books contain a lot of information
- Getting much amount of data, the human brain gets overwhelmed.
Now the solution is before starting to read big medical books, precondition or prepare your brain about what are you going to study from this topic. This will be done by reading a review book before going directly to that big book. Now this will help you to have a wonderful idea of a topic before reading that big books.
You may take an idea of that topic from your friends, or even the different lectures on youtube or any other source.
For example, if you want to study Antihypertensive drugs, if you don't know that hypertension occurs, then how will you get information about drugs used in hypertension.
2) Read in a Classification Manner
Reading in a classification manner rather than a diffuse manner is great. Because diffused information is much easier to forget than localized information. The reason behind this is that now you have created different chunks in the brain that contain information according to that topic.
When somebody asks you about that topic, you will give an answer easily. Classification will not only ease your answering but it will ease your way of learning new things.
Let's take an example, you have to memorize the names of Anti-coagulants drugs. If you remember the names mixed-up like Heparin, Enoxaparin, Argatroban, Rivaroxaban. There are a lot of chances to forget these names. But if you remember these names with classification like drugs that indirectly inhibit thrombin include heparin, fondaparinux, etc. And the drugs that directly inhibit thrombin include Argatroban, Dabigatran, etc. This will make your life much easier to remember things.
3) Knowing what is Important
The big books have only a few topics that are high-yielding. And in these high yield topics, there are topics that are of very much yield. Now, first of all, you have to go through those very high-yield topics that are very much important for your exams.
The reason why students study first the high-yield topics is that these gold-standard books need a lot of time. So, if you study all information given in that book. Then, in the end, you will be with a list of topics. The examiner might ask a question about those topics.
4) Understanding > Memorization
Make a mindset that you have to understand the things, not to memorize. Unlike there will be some facts and figures that will be memorizable. But you must have a mindset of understanding things more. Because a thing which you have understood through Active Recall, or any other method (If you want to know about Active Recall then Click Here), You would retain 99% of that information.
5) Paragraph vs Line Approach
Most of the paragraphs of Gold-standard medical books are only the explanation of the first line of paragraphs. So, when you read a Gold-standard medical book, your mindset should be of reading Paragraphwise rather than Linewise. As it will help you to skim the irrelevant or unimportant things and save time for other topics.
It is also important for those who take notes from these big Gold-Standard books. As after taking notes, they end up with a revised edition of that book in the name of notes. Those students also must have a mindset to read these books paragraphwise.
Why does Unwanted clot formation occurs in healthy vessels?
But, reading the first line of the paragraph you are not clear about it, then you should go through its explanation in that paragraph, otherwise just skim that paragraph.
6) Do the Left Out Things
After doing all the first 5 steps, you must have completed high yield stuff. Now, it's time to cover the remaining less important things. But, these left-out things are still important. It depends on you from which sources to use for these topics, you may use the same big book or the alternatives of that. It depends on how much information you want for that topic, more or less. If more, then go through the same gold-standard book, or if less then any alternative can be useful.
Congratulations, Now you have done a Read of Gold-Standard book.
7) Make Sticky Notes
While reading a big book, you might have come across facts and figures like information, that is memorizable only. That information is easy to forget or lose. So, what you have to do is during reading, any information that you think is difficult to memorize, write it down. Then, stick that notes behind each particular chapter. So, whenever you open that chapter, you recall that information very easily.
8) Acceptance
You have to accept that reading these big books will take time. Because highly qualified authors have written these gold-standard books.
The only thing you have to do is accept it, Don't lose hope, and Keep putting effort. Also, make a routine of reading these books, not like 2 chapters a day or 1 chapter a day. Just start first with 1 paragraph, then 2, then 1 page, and so on.
9) Do what your guts tell you
This is the most important point of reading a gold-standard book. After reading few topics from a book, if you feel you are not getting any benefit by reading these big books. Then, leave that book, as "The Best Book is different for Every Student". And Students only use that book which helps them understand information very better and also retain that information.
Conclusion
As the number of medical schools uses Gold-Standard books as a Textbook, it doesn't mean that they only use that particular book. There are a lot of sources other than books like Lectures on youtube, Academies, or more. The point is that you should have a mindset of learning something, not just reading 10 pages or 50 pages from a gold-standard book. If you have read-only 1 page and understand everything given on that page is better than reading 10 pages and understanding nothing.
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