Medical Gross Anatomy
Student Study Strategies

I found it easiest to sort out and remember all the anatomical structures by doing the dissection. If you take the time to actually sit in front of the cadaver and follow the directions, 99 percent of structures eventually reveal themselves. It helped that the other team used to do one half of the body so that I could go in at night and do the other half. As a warning, this is not the quickest way to learn anatomy, but it is definitely the most hands on and it makes the material stick. That's the practical side of things. When studying for the written tests, I didn't read the dissector answers. Rather, I took the practice quizzes online. Most of these questions are recycled in a different form on the real quiz.

One trick I discovered was to print out the blank netter slides off the web, then put a number by each structure. I would then put the answers on the back of the printout and test myself often, kind of like giant flash cards. This was best done before lab and reviews.

The Netter Atlas on CD also has a similar function where you can enter the structures you want and use the software to test yourself. Taking online practice practicals was also helpful: http://ect.downstate.edu/courseware/haonline/quiz.htm

Of course the best learning aid was the faculty review sessions. Having the Profs walk you through the anatomy really seals the content in your memory bank. Each professor has their own style and tricks and its great to benefit from each of them.

All the resources are there! You just need to figure out what works best for you. There is no doubt that review sessions were a key to my studying for anatomy. Our anatomy department is amazing. They are willing to hold review sessions with you each week to review the week's material. It's up to you to find a group you work well with, but if a professor is available, the review sessions are amazing. In addition, the faculty are there for us during scheduled lab times. They are a great resource, so use them! I found that for the quizzes, the best thing to do was to go through dissector answers, participate in a review session, and then do the practice quizzes. For the final, the most helpful thing was definitely to go in with a friend and actually go through the review lists with the bodies. It never hurts to see it in person before the practical. Good luck. And if you have any questions, ask an M2. We've all been through it!

  1. Pay attention in lab when you dissect. It was always easier to review for an exam when I had done a thorough job of pre-labbing and taken an active role in the dissection. Make sure you know where all the items on the review list are on your cadaver BEFORE you leave lab.

  2. In my experience, these were the sources for over 90 percent of the written exam questions
    1. Dissector answers
    2. Online practice quizzes
    3. Learning modules
    4. Clinical terms from the review items
    5. Clinical cases
    If you know these backward and forward, you will do fine.

  3. Always study for practicals with a friend (or 2 or 3), whether from your group or another. Particularly one who was in the other dissection team. Each of you will have picked up different pearls from faculty and will have different strengths in identifying structures and thus will be able to edify each other as you prepare.

I made it through anatomy by working with other people. Early on in the course I found a couple of people who I studied well with and together we would just head into the labs a couple of times before each practical and just keep going over the review lists. I also think that scheduling review sessions played a crucial role in getting the material down. All of the professors are so knowledgeable, but what was best about them is that they have done so many reviews with students that they immediately know what concepts are difficult and they have great ways of helping you make sense of the material. One thing I wish I had done better is staying ahead of the material. Anatomy is a rough class to get behind in and I definitely would recommend scheduling a review once a week just to keep all the material fresh and make sure you aren't lost.

If I can tell you one thing about how to do well in anatomy, it's this: see everything as many times as possible. Don't worry about being a perfectionist about every little detail at first. The little details will come eventually - get the big picture initially, and then keep reviewing, keep learning. Here's what I did: I pre-labbed as much as time permitted. At the very least, I watched last year's lecture video to get a global understanding of what we would be doing in a certain lab, then watched the lab video, and then watched that video again. When you're in lab, take the initiative to figure out what you're doing. Definitely ask questions of the professors, but don't use them as a crutch. At the end of each lab, try to review what you've done, the structures you've gone through. Sometimes a professor can give you an impromptu review. Then, as soon as possible after each lab, review the dissector answers. Those are golden. If you can, go through them twice. Really think about how things are related, how things work together and separately. For the sake of keeping things fresh in preparation for the practical, I recommend going to at least one review each week, to see that week's structures (I tried to go to two, many times three, per week). And - this is extremely important - go through the practice quizzes before you take any quiz/exam with anatomy. They are an excellent review, are very applicable to what you're about to be tested on, and at times bring up some new but testable information. Best of luck!

Learning anatomy cannot be done without awe of the complexity and intricacy of the human body. Clutching Netter's to your chest, or possibly resting your head on a prayerful plea for a novel development of osmosis, I learned anatomy feeling inspired and sometimes, feeling very small against the deluge of vocabulary and anatomical structure memorization. Here was the key for me: etymology and mnemonics. The Greek and Latin roots of anatomical structures help put a story behind the words, and also puts a dorky smile on my face as a mustached Dr. Gest points at the pia mater saying, "Isn't it elegant?" "Pia mater" means "tender mother" in Latin, which is itself a translation from Arabic. The anatomy faculty and notes provide a good amount of etymology, but you can always check out www.etymonline.com. Make Victor Vaughn proud. Continuing on classical knowledge, Mnemosyne was the Greek goddess of memory and also the mother of the Muses. The anatomy faculty offer you "Some Lovers Try Positions They Can't Handle" to start you off (Musculoskeletal), but there are many websites that I used to help me remember - www.medicalmnemonics.com, for one. Finally, with your reservoir of knowledge, test yourself at faculty anatomy reviews. I would reserve them weekly at the start of the sequence for my group, which saves the hassle of scheduling every week. The anatomy faculty are Amazing and help make the cold anatomy rooms more welcoming and just that much better of a learning experience.

If you look through all the different materials and information provided to you, it can be overwhelming at first, but it actually is kind of important to go through it all because it helps reinforce the information, and every source has additional little tidbits of helpful info. I really like routines, so it was helpful for me to get a routine of how I always went through the material. First, I did the great un-tapped secret of anatomy - watched the previous year's lab intro lecture video. I liked that because if I tried to start in on the lab manual right away without any intro, I was invariably lost due to all the new vocab, etc. Then I went through the lab manual online, making sure to check out all the cool pics associated with the manual. I read everything, even the clinical case. Finally, I went through the pre-lab images in Netter's, making sure that I had a general sense of everything I was supposed to be looking for and relationships, etc. After lab, I honestly didn't do much until the quiz, which I would prepare for by going over the anatomy tables in detail and taking the practice quizzes, which are probably the most helpful things on the anatomy website. It's incredibly useful not just to see if you get everything right, but to actually read through the answers to the questions because they provide wonderful, concise information about why the right answer is right, why the wrong answers are wrong, and often useful hints about really important information that is likely to be tested again. Taking a quiz without doing the practice quizzes is like shooting yourself in the foot. So is going to lab without pre-labbing. Prelabbing can be time-consuming, but if you do it you will learn so much!

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