Taking notes in medical school can be messy and time-consuming. With so much material to write down and memorize, having a strategy for effective note-taking can make a difference in your performance in medical school. In today’s guest post from SupremeDissertations, we’re giving you specific approaches and tips for quick note-taking. Give these a try and see what works best!
1. Never Copy Verbatim
Have you ever copied text from the textbook and then struggled to remember it?
If you have, then you’ve joined the club. This is the most common mistake that medical students make when taking notes. Copying text from a textbook doesn’t engage the brain, so a student won’t understand the meaning and even struggle to remember the material.
What’s more, this strategy can turn them into copying machines that create one more version of the textbook. If a student keeps doing that, he or she won’t train their brain for active learning.
The whole point of note-taking is to have students focus their full attention and engage their brains. So, avoid copying studying materials. Better try to rephrase them to make your notes more concise—it’ll help you to write faster.
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2. Use Abbreviations
Abbreviations are a good way to speed up writing. Developing a system of abbreviations can help you to save time while taking all key information points.
Here are some common abbreviations you’ll find useful:
- h/o – history of
- Tx – therapy, treatment
- HTN – hypertension
- SE – side effects
- N/V/D – nausea, vomiting, diarrhea
- Vaxx – vaccine
- CT – connective tissue
- CBC – complete blood count
- Sx – symptoms
- c/o – complaints of
- B.i.d. – twice daily
- Rx – drugs.
- Dx – diagnosis
Diseases and conditions also have their own abbreviations:
- ARF – acute renal failure
- DM1/DM2 – type 1-2 diabetes
- COPD – chronic obstructive pulmonary disease
- CT – chemotherapy
- DJD – degenerative joint disease.
Treat these as ideas for inspiration—many people use different abbreviations for some of the items on the list. But definitely try to come up with your own way to abbreviate—it’ll save you tons of time!
3. Try the Outlining Method
“Outlining” is a note-taking method where you logically structure the information. The trick is to form a bullet point-rich outline where information search is easy. Students using outlining say it helped reduce the time for taking, editing, and reviewing.
To use the outlining method:
- Write every information piece as a bullet point
- Use headings and subheadings to break up bullet points
- Add the most important points farther to the right and define the level of importance with various distances from the left margin.
To study with the outlining method:
- Write a short summary of the lecture before the text
- Add keywords and cue words to every section for easier information search
- Connect related ideas by highlighting them in the same color.
“The outlining method works best for students in the case of “slow” and “medium-speed” lectures,” shares Brian Newton, a healthcare writer. “If a professor speaks very fast and introduces many concepts at once, then writing with another method is a better idea.”
4. Use the Mapping Method
You’ve probably heard about an approach called mind mapping. This one uses the same principles to take notes.
Mapping is a notetaking method that relates each idea to another idea. A student starts with the main idea of the lecture and expands it by connecting with other ones. The result is a graphic representation of lecture content, easy to scan and understand.
Here are two examples of maps from this study on instructor-provided notes in medical education. The left one is a part of professor-issued guided notes on the anatomy of the middle ear. The right one was written by a student and contains much more information.
Note how the student used different colors; another technique to categorize the content.
“Mapping works especially well for students who are visual learners,” says Jessie Zadorsky, a healthcare writer. “It improves writing structure, which also makes it effective for planning essays and research papers.”
Indeed, as these two examples showed, mapping gives a visual overview of lecture material. By forcing students to create a new or expand an existing map, it actively engages the brain by making them think about content organization.
Medical students can create maps both by hand and with digital resources. If you decide to try the digital way, there are many free mind mapping apps out there to use for free.
5. Try the Cornell Method
In this very popular note-taking method, separate a sheet of paper into three areas. Draw a line down the left page side to create a 2.5-inch margin on the left. The larger section on the right will be the note-taking area. The smaller left one is where you’ll make labels to differentiate specific topics.
The third section is a summary of your thoughts and comments. It is supposed to be at the very bottom of every topic section. Write this section after the lecture to remind yourself about key takeaways and your personal reflections on the content.
Lecture notes made with the Cornell method look like this.
Source: Wikipedia
Writing cue words and keywords for every new topic is extremely important. You’ll be using them to scan through your notes quickly and find specific information pieces.
So, try to write a new cue for every subtopic or information area in the left column to introduce the notes in the right one. This means skipping a few lines and starting with a new cue and notes when a professor moves to a new point.
With those cues and keywords, you’ll get yourself serviceable notes. For example, a lecture about Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS) might contain cues like definitions, treatment methods, symptoms, and so on.
6. Highlight Text in Different Colors
Highlighting passages while taking notes is a good strategy to differentiate content sections. But in some cases, students end up highlighting most of their notes (just look at any medical student’s copy of First Aid!) Later, finding the most important information becomes more difficult because if you highlight everything, you highlight nothing.
To make learning and note-taking more effective, try to keep highlighting in different colors. This way, you’ll make it easier to find a specific section.
If you’re writing diabetes notes, consider using these colors:
- Yellow – definitions, e.g., “Type 2 Diabetes is a form of diabetes characterized by insulin resistance, high blood sugar, and low insulin…”
- Orange – locations, e.g., “Thyroid gland is located at the base of your neck…”
- Purple – pathophysiology, e.g., “Type 2 diabetes is caused by an imbalance between the demand and production of insulin…”
- Green – mechanism of action, e.g., “Metformin lowers blood glucose concentrations by decreasing its production and increasing peripheral glucose uptake and use.”
- Pink – treatment, e.g., “Type 2 diabetes patients can control their blood sugar with a healthy diet and exercise…”
This strategy works for both handwritten and electronic notes and can help to organize your notes.
Final Thoughts
There’s so much to learn in nursing school, so finding an effective note-taking method is a good idea. With these strategies and tips, you’ll be able to save hours of study time every week. Try some of these strategies and see what works for you.
About the Author
Kristin Savage is a freelance writer and editor from SupremeDissertations. Her mission is to share writing tips for small businesses, educational institutions, non-profits, and aspiring writers. So far, Kristin has authored over 100 publications on how to make writing clear and to the point.
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