Forums IMPORTANT: PLEASE READ PhotoReading, Memory Optimizer Studying medicine with PR - need HELP!!!

Dear Avid PhotoReaders!

I am a medical student in Australia and in a fit of desperation bought the PR Whole Mind System last year and had it shipped over to me.

Forgive the blaspheme - but I haven't had much success so far!!!

Confessions:
No, I haven't stuck to it very well.
No, I haven't practiced very much.
No, I haven't ever completed all of the steps for even a single book.

Truth is, I found that it was all still too time-consuming - esp. the mind-mapping stages. So I regressed back to the cave-man-style of normal reading. True, I wasn't remembering too much of it, but atleast I was getting through the material quicker and so FELT better on the surface!

I feel that the rule of "all the important stuff is said within 10-20% of the words" doesn't quite work with medical literature - usually every sentence has a new fact/detail and so can't afford to be skipped.

So here I am seeking help/advice/strategies/encouragement etc.

Waiting in hope,
Prynceska

If I were you I'd photoread, postview, and then do one pass with superreading and dipping. That shouldn't add too much time, and then you can cave-man read the rest.

Those three things that you haven't done already can mess you up big time. Try using all five steps. It might seem slow at first, but after doing step 4, use mindmapping and then try step 5.

Youngprer I must disagree. She said it was too time-consuming. To me that means it was too time-consuming, whether you took it that way or not.

Since the photoreading stage would be perhaps 6 to 12 minutes depending on how thick the book or how many chapters you choose to cover I'd be inclind to make sure I do that with whatever text I study. And I agree with astrowill do at least one activation step of superreading and dipping.

It's interesting that you refer to the alternative method as 'cave man' though.

If you really want to gain a sense of mastery with photoreading practice it on other books not your text books. Pick a couple of 200 page non fiction books to work with and see how much you can gain from them by doing the 5 steps on them. Once you've done a few of them then you'll be better able to adapt the PhotoReading system to your medical text.

Alex

Thanks all for your replies!

Well, what I have done, is gone through the Personal Learning Course again from tape 1. And I am practising a bit more with my textbooks. And I think that I am slowly making the system work for me. It definitely works very well for me with non-fiction books. But my struggle was with my text-books and the fact that every sentence had to be read and mostly remembered too.

So I am still looking for some specific strategies for medical textbook photoreading. Would appreciate any replies from any medico-photoreaders out there!!

Later,
Prynceska

I'm going to assume that you want more out of your text books than you are getting from the "caveman" technique. When you consider how much time it would take to read the text books twice (to get more out of them). Look at the activation part of photoreading as one reading of the textbook. The time where you dig out the really important information from the book and create a mind map. Once you've done that you can add a rapid read... this will be faster than your "caveman" technique because now you fly over the stuff you've already mind mapped.

Sure it seems like your spending more time with the book initally but in truth you are more actively learning from the book. The reason it seems like more time is because you've added a learning stage to get more out of the book one that you would normally bypass when reading with the regular method.

Let us know how you're doing and specifically what you're doing so that we can give you advise if you need it.

Alex

Hello,

I am a med student in chicago. I PR'd my surgery text and received the 2nd highest grade in my class rotation. I sloughed off boards till the last minute ( my wife and I had a son Feb28 ) and I failed the Nat'l Boards, passing was 180 out of 250. However, I have talked to some people who studied 8 hrs/day for 3 months religiously and scored from about 205-218. I scored 171 with about 3 weeks of prep, 6 weeks vacation from prep (help wife, change diapers, feed kid at 200am, and help keep up house), then 3 weeks prep at ~4 hours of study per day with numerous interuptions from wife saying, 'can you hold the baby for just a second and then I will not bother you any more'. Of course, who can resist your first newborn son. There is only one right answer no matter how many times your wife breaks that promise that she will give you time to study. Did I digress too far? My heart was not in studying, I was very calm during the test. I am profoundly surprised at my score for the total lack of time I spent preparing for it. I am preparing to retake it and I plan to do much better this time.
What I learned from Surgery:
1. relax mind and enter ALS
2. Preview chapter
3. Ask self what this is all about
4. reaffirm ALS and relax
5. PR
6. Post-view
7. At least 1 hour later, SR& dip 4-5X
8. mind map as sloppy as possible
9. Use a stopwatch and get up and walk around when your brain goes into a holding pattern.
This seemed to work for me. At the end of surgery I was doing a chapter in about 90 minutes. It is true that most books have about 10-15% valuable information. I did not mind map in my Nat'l Board prep so I know I could have done better there.

So much of PRing is just relaxing and just doing it. You will not be good at it on your first try. Plan to start showing progress on your 20th try. You will show progress before that of course but it does remove the stress of expectation. If you have ever done an H&P you know how this works. After C/CO you have to ask when sx occured, how long they have occured, scale of 1-10, prev hx of sx, are they assoc. w/activity, what makes it better/worse, etc. Then you have to do prior medical Hx, Social Hx, Surgical Hx, Ask about medications, allergies, then review the systems. Now you can do the physical while remembering the previous interview and trying to remain professional while the patient knows you are a newbie student who cannot even operate a sphygmomanometer!
Obviously you practice on models in the beginning and each other trying to remain serious. Eventually you get to the point where you can get through it w/o using an ectopic brain (cheat sheet). Then you get to where you can get it all done in about 15-20 minutes and you are doing the ROS while performing the physical and having a working Dx for the Attending as you exit the room.

You will get better. The course is built in layers. IT is easier than learning H&Ps because there is no pressure. You will learn PRing and find what works best for you just as every physician has their own style of doing H&Ps.

Good luck,

Devin

Thanks heaps, Alex and Devin!

Well, I am actually doing better with the PRWM system!! I think when I first gave it a go (about a year ago) I was rather sloppy with the techniques and wasn't keeping to time constraints. Which is why I degenerated into elementary reading methods. But now I am slowly getting better at it and am finding it IS working much better than my previous study methods!!

Devin, it was encouraging to read about your experience with Surg!! And congrats on surviving as a new-father simult. with Medicine!! I must say that some of your abreviations are a bit strange to us Downunder!! What's H&P (History & Physical? We call that Hist & Exam here!) And what's C/CO?

Alex, thanks for your encouragment!! Here is a detailed descrip. of what I am currently doing:

PREPARE: Relax. And form a possibly obsessive-compulsive Purpose: To read, understand ALL the material and to remember most of it.

PREVIEW: Mainly by looking at the major headings in the chapter of interest. Then I form a rather sloppy set of mind-probe questions: eg. What are the major conditions in the Gastro system and what are all their causes, prevalence, clinical features, investigations and management, prognosis, etc. Don't do trigger words - hate them. Feel they are not at all representative of the guts of the material when I do do them.

PHOTOREAD: Just the chapters I plan to activate that week. Am cool with the blip page and the X, etc. Don't like missing pages tho' so I find that I will take the extra time to fiddle to flip every page - even if it distracts me!! (Yes, I hear your accusations of Obsessive-Compulsive again!)

ACTIVATE: This is my problem step - I tend to try to rapid read during this step and eventually degenerate into same-old same-old reading. Am slowly getting better at super reading and dipping. Been trying some skittering - I like the fact that it provides "security" for the Obs-Comp ones of us!! Have only just recently getting more ACTIVE (by mind-probing) during this step - I think I was too passive when I tried it last year. So, anyway, I SR&dip about 3-4 times over a few days. And I am trying to stick to my time-constraints better to prevent the degeneration. LOVE mind-mapping in theory but hate it in practice due to the time-consumption factor!! Maybe as I continue to let go of my Obs-Comp requirements and my old reading habits and attitudes, I will eventually create enough time to be able to mind-map as well.

RAPID READ: This kind of gets subsumed into the Activation step.

Sorry about how long this post is! Felt I needed to get it all off my chest! Any further advice and suggestions would continue to be valued!!

Doing better,
Prynceska

During the preview stage just collect 20 to 25 trigger words/phrases (they don't have to be single words) for the section you are working on... don't worry about forming questions yet.

Form questions from the trigger words/phrases following photoreading and the quick post view... you'll probably find yourself asking better questions.

During activation (at least 20 minutes after photoreading) keep reminding yourself you can flip through the pages repeatedly (in effect your mind glances at this information a number of times). It might help drive away the urge to rapid read long sections too soon.

You might want to apply a time constraint on the rapid reading if you keep finding yourself falling into it too soon.

With mind mapping I understand what you mean. You could try out some other forms or note taking... like the herringbone technique. The Northern Territory Universtity site has some other techniques worth considering. I think mind maps prove to be the most annoying for people who work with auditory senses for learning so why not make a brief summery of your notes into a tape recorder? It has been shown that we remember 80% of what we say. Something like 70% of what we see and only 40% of what we hear. So just taking about what you learnt into a tape has the potential of being a great memory aid.

Alex