Master of Memory: Accelerated learning, education, memorization - MMem 0388: How a surgeon can memorize information about surgery systematically

Episode Date: September 2, 2015

Travis is in residency for surgery with a Top Rated Plastic Surgeon and wants to find a systematic way to package procedural information. We go over some ideas for creating systematic mnemonics to remember all the information reliably. What do you want to learn? Leave your question at http://MasterOfMemory.com/. Music credit: Maurice Ravel’s String Quartet, 2nd movement, performed […]

Master of Memory 388. 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. Travis submitted a written question at masterofmemory.com slash question. Travis says, Hi Timothy, I've enjoyed listening to your podcast, and I'm wondering if you can help me. I'm in residency for surgery and would love to be able to memorize some information better.

There are a lot of things to take into account that can be difficult to learn and retain. For example, within a given injury, let's say tibia fracture, there are numbers to learn for accepted angulation, anatomy for surgery, steps to the surgery, etc. to memorize. I've been trying to figure out a way to organize these concepts, and I'd love your take on memorizing a package that contains numbers, concepts, anatomy, and systematic steps. So first of all, Travis, I get a lot of questions from people studying medicine, and that almost makes me want to study medicine myself and create resources for it, but that's probably not happening very soon.

But anyway, what you're describing here, Travis, is an example of an exceptionally good question because of the effort that you've put into it and the ideas that you've come up with as far as helping you memorize this information. It's not just very general. It's actually pretty specific. You've put a little bit of thought into it. So I'm happy to address this question here on the podcast. Now, as far as

packaging the information in a systematic way, I would suggest that you have different numbers in your PAO system, if you have a PAO system, represent different things. For example, you could have your angles always be objects, and have something else that's not angles always be your memorable characters from your PAO system. So that's a beginning way to start, you know, talking about the package that you're talking about. And then as far as the steps go, you would want to use a memory palace for that. And so you store different things along different places in the palace. And then kind of like I've been describing for music mnemonics, perhaps different aspects or different actions that you're taking throughout it could be in different, you know, locations

or positions in each room. You go from one room on the floor to the next room on the ceiling if it's a different type of step, to in the next room perhaps you're on the wall because you're taking a different type of step. You want to make it very standard and unfortunately I can't get very specific as far as creating examples for you and things that you can really implement. But I really do like the idea of creating a package where you have different palaces for different situations, and you always proceed through them very systematically and knowing exactly what each image in your palace represents so you don't get anything mixed up. Because, I mean, just think about the importance of remembering information reliably in such

high-risk environments as surgery it doesn't get much more high risk than that and memory doesn't become much more important than that so that's a really great application of mnemonics and of using memorization techniques to improve the way that you do something and and perhaps even to save lives. I guess the short answer to your question, Travis, is yes, I do believe in creating a package like that. The couple of suggestions that I've been able to give, I hope that those have helped somewhat,

but I'd love to help you come up with perhaps some more specific things that we could put together to make this work for you. So, Travis, please shoot me a message at timothy at masterofmemory.com. For everyone listening, what do you want to learn? The world's knowledge can be yours. Leave your learning request at masterofmemory.com slash question and I'll talk to you again soon. Thank you.