How to Learn Physiology in Medical School

physiology is very important right it's

literally how the human body works and

learning it is crucial because if you

understand how the body works you can

very easily understand why it behaves

the way it behaves when it stops working

but you see there's a problem because

although there are plenty of things

which are a joy to learn in physiology

there are also a lot of graphs and

equations that are kind of intimidating

so with that in mind what I'm gonna do

in this video is walk you through my top

three tips to learn physiology and not

die trying in case you're interested you

can find more evidence-based learning

techniques on my masterclass on the

science of effective learning which you

can find for free in a sculpture but

more on that later

okay tip number one become distrustful

so I don't know if you've heard but

apparently there are some studies that

show that in average people tend to

overestimate their beauty there is for

instance one study that took some photos

of a bunch of participants and then

enhanced their attractiveness with

Photoshop then they showed the pictures

to the participants and ask them to pick

which one of them was the actual real

photo the result was that most people

tended to pick the enhanced photos over

the actual photos as the real ones but

why am I bringing this up well because

the same thing happens with learning

when you learn a new subject this is how

much you think you understood and this

is how much you actually understood

scientists call this the fluency

illusion and it's very important to keep

it in mind because there will be times

when you're learning a subject and you

start thinking oh okay okay if okay got

it just to realize in the exam that no

you actually didn't got it so to avoid

it from happening what you need to do is

to become distrustful every time you

learn something new and you start

feeling like okay okay I'm kind of

getting it realize that it's just your

brain making you think you're more

intelligent than you actually are if you

want a couple of very practical

techniques to make this process more

effective you can try to find one

technique and the testing effect the

Feynman technique consists in trying to

explain the topic you just learned to an

imaginary person because let's face it

no one wants to hear you Mumble medical

explanations out loud the magic of the

find man technique is that once you

start trying to articulate your thoughts

all of your blind spots become clear and

that's how you realize which things you

actually understood and which things

were Just an Illusion an alternative to

Define one technique is a testing effect

the testing effect simply consists in

trying to test yourself on the topic and

you can do this in several ways for

example you can try to answer the

questions that you can that you often

find at the end of each chapter that's

one option A another option which I

think is a little bit more effective is

you can try to do a dedicated question

bank that lets you like filter the

questions according to the subject

Ambush for example lets you do that and

you answer questions on just the topic

you're trying to learn that's also a

really good technique and just with the

Feynman technique the magic here is that

once you are forced to answer a question

or solve a clinical case you're forced

to use your knowledge on that matter and

this makes you realize how ignorant you

truly are okay tip number two become the

annoying guy of the class so I don't

know about you but when I was in school

there was always this guy that wouldn't

shut up and constantly ask stuff like

why are we learning this that guy was a

nightmare right however having his

attitude can be helpful when learning

physiology you see there are several

things in physiology that you're gonna

learn just to understand something about

a disease or because a similar graph

with a pathology is going to appear in

your exam in those cases understanding

why you're learning the subject which is

something we call the pathological

correlation becomes extremely useful not

only because it will make your life

easier but also because it helps you to

ground the subject and remember it

better and so whenever you're learning

something kind of esoteric like the jvp

waveforms ask yourself why am I learning

this what is the pathological

correlation here how am I going to use

this that will help you to find the

abnormal finding that you have to

remember or the abnormal graph you have

to understand that will make learning

the subject that much easier

by the way you can ask a similar

question when learning pathologies and

that is actually a really really good

habit for instance if you're learning

something like cystic fibrosis you can

ask yourself okay this cftr Gene that is

that has a mutation what does it

normally do you'll be surprised of the

amount of stuff you can learn by asking

like kind of those reverse engineer

questions and I can tell you from

personal experience that most of the

physiology I know was actually learned

like that like in a reverse engineering

fashion rather than in the traditional

method okay and finally tip number three

avoid trying to memorize so with this I

don't mean that you shouldn't use your

memory or that memory is bad no I just

mean that you shouldn't rely solely on

memory to learn medicine because you see

I've been teaching medicine for about

seven years now and I've realized that

there are two types of people the ones

that memorize and the ones that

comprehend both types can be very smart

both types can earn awesome grades in

your test and you can ask both of those

types it's questions such as okay what

are the variables in the fixed law and

they can answer you but the difference

is that the guy that comprehends is

actually understanding the subject and

therefore he's able to use the concept

extrapolate it and use it out of context

meanwhile the guy that just memorizes

the concept is able to use a learned

words in the Learned context but that's

about it so for instance you can

memorize the Venturi effect is a

reduction in fluid pressure that results

when a fluid flows through a constricted

section of a pipe and repeat this

definition ad nauseum in the exam and

earn an awesome grade and all of that

right but if you aren't actually

understanding what the effect actually

means you'll never be able to use it to

understand something like why the mitral

valve opens in systole in a patient with

hypertrophic obstructive cardiomyopathy

that will just become another random

thing you have to remember just because

however if you actually understand what

the Venture effect is then you can use

the concept and look at a photo of for

example hypertrophic obstructive

cardiomyopathy and think okay yes yes

here is another conduct I see it okay so

blood when will a flow through this part

is going to accelerate and that

acceleration is going to pull structures

nearby so that will make the mitral

valve come a little closer in systole

and that will create a secondary mitral

insufficiency okay I got it for that

person this is not another random thing

to memorize it's just another really

interesting example of the Venture

effect in the human body so yeah be like

a bill and learn medicine not through

memory but instead through comprehension

and hey if you could value from these

tips make sure to check out more

evidence-based learning techniques in my

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