Memorize Medical Terms
Medical terms can sound redundant and are sometimes hard to memorize. Trying to memorize difficult terms can be just that, DIFFICULT. It’s frustrating trying to memorize terms that aren’t in our everyday vocabulary. Here is a great method you can use to help you memorize medical terms.
Instead of flashcards or repeating the words over and over and trying to literally memorize the term, and driving yourself crazy, try this method.
Take the word you are trying to memorize and turn it in to a picture. You can even break the words down by syllables. Then take the definition of the term and turn that in to a picture and combine to two pictures together.
Let’s exercise this method, using a few medical terms.
Let’s say the word you need to memorize is Acapnia, which means having a lower level than normal carbon dioxide in the blood.
Our first step is to create a picture for the term acapnia and a picture for the definition and mash them together to see them as a bigger picture. First picture I create is a baseball cap being placed on top of a knee for the term acapnia. Then I think of the definition which is carbon dioxide, so I picture coal or gasoline burning and on top of that picture, we include the first visual of the baseball cap on the knee and morph them together.
Let’s say the next medical term you need to remember is macula. Macula means the light-sensitive tissue on the back of the eye. As we read, light is focused on our macula, and millions of cell change that light into nerve signals that tell our brains what we’re seeing. So the medical term macula needs to be turned in to a picture and for me, I think of a Big Mac, a hamburger, and it’s eaten by Dracula. So you have a Big Mac and it’s eaten by a Dracula, hence the term Macula. Next, we need a picture for the definition. It means light goes in to the macula and goes out as nerve signals, so see light going into the macula and then going out as nerve signals, so we took the word macula and created a picture for that and then we took the definition and created a picture for that and mashed the pictures together to create the picture below:
This picture helps us to memorize the medical term macula.
Another medical term is octapressin, which is an ingredient that can be added to a local anesthetic to constrict blood vessels.
so we take the word octapressin and turn it into a picture. We imagine an octopus and it’s pressing and what does it do? It constricts blood vessels. We have now combined the word with the meaning by creating a picture of an octopus pressing down on a blood vessel.
Learning to memorize medical terms or any term that is difficult is beneficial to your study habits. Adding pictures or images to terms helps make learning medical terms much easier. This is a technique that has been working for decades.
So we just found a way to memorize three medical terms using pictures. The concept was simple. You turned the medical term into a picture and then turn its definition into a picture and combined it in to one big picture, that’s how you can learn to memorize medical terms.
For more tips on how to memorize medical terms, click the link below:
