Master of Memory: Accelerated learning, education, memorization - MMem 0275: Reprise: How do you memorize pharmacology terms?

Episode Date: March 27, 2015

Today Timothy revisits the question on how to memorize pharmacology terms, with some extra comments on how he would change his answer today. What do you want to learn? Leave your question at http://MasterOfMemory.com/. Music credit: Maurice Ravel’s String Quartet, 2nd movement, performed by the US Army Band.

Hey everyone, this is Timothy and welcome to episode 275 of Master of Memory. Today we're doing a reprise of episode 38 about memorizing pharmacological terms. Something I liked about this episode was talking about using stressed syllable mnemonics for vocabulary in a specialized field. So no matter what field you're in, if you're studying some type of science or pharmacology or whatever it is, you can use stressed syllable mnemonics to accelerate your picking up the new vocabulary. Another interesting thing is that it's a very early example of a master of memory episode that uses a non-linear palace. So we've placed cardiovascular drugs in

one room and dermatological drugs in another room, and it's interesting that I maybe didn't even realize that that's exactly what I was doing, but creating categories from the rooms and not really using a linear memory palace in the traditional sense. The point is that you could take this and you could expand it to pretty much any field if you're creative and decide exactly how to build your memory palace. Welcome to Master of Memory. I'm Timothy and I'm here to answer your accelerated learning questions every day and to inspire and empower you to learn anything you want to learn faster than ever. Barb asked in an email about memorizing pharmacological terms in preparation for a test.

So my biggest suggestion for memorizing vocabulary of any kind, whether a foreign language or specialized terminology like this, is just focusing on the stressed syllables of each word and creating some sort of mnemonic that will help you to memorize the meaning of the word based on the stressed syllables. To give a couple of examples, let's take anoxymone. So you would imagine that an ox moans because it suddenly suffers from congestive heart failure, which is what anoxymone is meant to treat. And similarly, there's phenylephrine, and let's see, the stressed syllable is lef, and that sounds like laugh. So you would imagine that someone is on a stage, but he sneezes, and one of his fans is laughing, but the guy on the stage doesn't notice because he's feeling dizzy from low blood pressure.

So notice that I used a guy on the stage, and it was one of his fans that was laughing, and that's because phenylephrine has the stress syllable lef, but it has the secondary stress syllable of fen, which sounds like fan. So the fan laughs. So phenylephrine is used to treat nasal congestion and low blood pressure. And you could use that story to help you remember that. Of course, you'd have to make sure that you're differentiating this term from other terms that have similar stress syllables. And that's why you use things like secondary stressed syllables and so on. And also, both of those may need more details for the stories based on, you know, depending on what you need to know about each of those terms.

But you know, just use the level of detail that you need, start somewhere, and then you can add more detail to the stories as you go along and learn more. Now that's just one aspect of memorizing this vocabulary, creating the story. I also suggest placing those stories in specific places in a memory palace specifically for pharmacological terms. So you want to choose probably a place that you've actually been and that you associate with the stuff that you're studying. For you, it may be a particular room in a place that you're studying or maybe a place that you will be working with pharmacology, but essentially just keep it all in a specific place and turn that place into a memory palace.

So let's say that you would place all the mnemonic stories about cardiovascular drugs in a particular room in this building that you choose, and then you put all the stories about dermatologic drugs in some closet in that building, etc. So, you would, for example, with the ox moaning, you would imagine that the ox is doing that in that room that you choose for cardiovascular drugs or whatever. That's just an example. And I'm, you know, I don't really know that much about pharmacology, obviously, probably for anybody who does. But the point is you use those stress syllables and create stories. And then you place those stories in categorized areas so that you can quickly find what you need to know about that drug and how to categorize that drug based on where it is in your memory palace and what's going on with your story.

And I'd be happy to use any particular terms you send me as further examples or to help you out in any other way as you prepare for your exams and your career. Just shoot me another email and I'll help you out with that. All right, I hope you've enjoyed this reprise episode. For anyone who has any questions about learning or memorizing anything faster than ever, feel free still to leave a message at masterofmemory.com slash question, and I'll be able to respond quickly to your message from wherever I am. I just won't be able to record an episode on that topic until I'm back in the States in May.

Meanwhile, if you want to support the show, please check out our Spanish course at masterofmemory.com slash Spanish. Or if you want to follow my adventures in Argentina or wherever else I might happen to be, you can do that at timothymoser.com. © transcript Emily Beynon