AbalaTips 101: Studying Microbiology, Parasitology, and Pharmacology --> ACTIVE LEARNING

Hello again mga kacolleague, welcome sa AbalaTips for Philippine Medical Schools, let us discuss 3 of the subjects in Medical school here in the Philippines which will require a ton of memorization which is Microbiology, Parasitology, and Pharmacology. But let us convert them into ACTIVE LEARNING strategy which could help us understand and memorize well this concept

Disclaimer: This AbalaTip is not intended to invalidate or to mention that your learning method is wrong, but rather this is a guide and to emphasize the advantages of active learning in medical school

What is the common amongst these 3 subject, they require memorization and visual learning, applying this concept taken and modified from University of Melbourne:
  • Change the format of information- example a long paragraph in Harrison or Nelson or Katzung , or Harper turn them into diagrams, bullets, or tables 
  • Write and Draw frequently- make summaries, glossary or picture taking (for example summary of your Physiology, or Draw for example what you had learned in Legal Medicine)
Let us bisect the subject on how we can approach them

MICROBIOLOGY
- In this subject, the micro-organisms are discussed some INDIVIDUAL some BY GROUP, one way that you can do is mapping the micro-organisms very important is via diagram, i suggest you can redraw the concept from USMLE Step 1 First Aid

The goal here here is to map the organism according to the classification

Aside from these diagrams, it will be great also to make a table of micro-organisms, containing pictures and important facts about the micro-organisms either comparing them or individually containing most important facts and treatment involved in that specific or group of micro-organisms.

If you are again a fan of comic-strip I would suggest you can study also as a supplementary material call "Microbiology Made Ridicolously Simple" which has comic humor on it which allows you to visualize and easily grasp the concept of Microbiology (and Parasitology). Also creating a mnemonic will also be fun for you to remember the subject

**Suggestion of what I did here is not jut reading the concept but turn get concepts from both Jawetz and Murray (also Micro made Simple) and atlases and make a table onto it and create diagram also and mnemonics to help you

PARASITOLOGY
For parasitology, it will differ in that it is now dicussed BY GROUPs, different organisms but on the same classification with lifecycle involved from CDC involved, usually textboooks used in the Philippines are Markell and Vogues, and Belizario,

**Suggestion CREATE a TABLE according to what group of organisms they are (ex. Cestodes, Flukes, Nematodes) according to life cycle diseases and treatment infective and diagnostic stage are also important and an atlas will be helpful for you to visualize micro-organisms

Also f you are again a fan of comic-strip I would suggest you can study also as a supplementary material call "Microbiology Made Ridicolously Simple" which has comic humor on it which allows you to visualize and easily grasp the concept and Parasitology. Also creating a mnemonic will also be fun for you to remember the subject

PHARMACOLOGY
**Credits to PPCMD2 as Pharmacist also, he taught me techniques on how to approach this subject and it helped me in the Board exam to ace my Pharmacology and Therapeutics Module 

What we did in the Pharmacology is taken from Textbook (Katzung or Goodman depending on what textbook are you using in your medical school) is to create a diagram on to it classify the drugs and write the most common use, mechanism of action, and side effect of that drug also applicable to inidividual drugs, let me show the illustration table which me and PPCMD2 both used for studying pharmacology IDEALLY DO THIS IN HANDWRITING IN YOUR OWN TO WORK
and/or
Credits to PPCMD2 for creating this diagrams, copy and pasted from his blog 
"Way of Studying for Medicine and its Board Exam as an Average Student"


TAKE NOTE: 
 All of your lectures, textbooks and atlases are RAW MATERIALS, its on your active learning that will create a finish product which you can use for your exams.


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