Common Question. How do I take notes? It’s pretty funny because the answer is “however you damm well want to”. However, the prospect of studying Medicine can be a bit daunting and you may feel like you need to develop superhuman like powers to be able to cope. However, the secret is finding what works well for you. So, here is what worked for me !
1.The Lecture
“Read before the lecture”, that’s what you always get told. However, “you just haven’t got the time for that”. Here is an example of my 1st week timetable :
The only prep I did was to download the lecture slides onto OneNote. Maybe, read through them if we were told to. That is it though!
I used OneNote to take notes in all my lectures. That’s tip number one really, never and I mean never, try and write everything thats on the powerpoint in lectures. Go in with a copy of it and make your notes on that. You won’t keep up and often what the lecturer is saying will explain what maybe unclear on all the slides. You’ll have time to copy things from the slides later, listen to the lecturer now.
I downloaded all my powerpoints in PDF format and used my laptops fancy function of morphing into a tablet to take my notes on the PDF and the space beside the slides:
This meant I had all the information from the slides AND the things my lecturers were saying all together. I organised all my notes into Blocks and then further into themes :
This means all my notes are easy to find. It also means that all the extras such as group work, student peer support notes and anything else that happens (such as random lectures from the GMC or NHS bursary).
2. After the Lecture
After each lecture I then go and write up my notes. I did this by handwriting in the first couple of weeks of medical school. However, this became time consuming and I was spending to much time. The notes became unreadable and I just gave up. I then switched to typing out all my notes which soon became a dream to do. I could directly copy images I liked from the powerpoint. This also included equations which were a prominent feature in the heart and lungs block. My notes were quick to write up and ALWAYS legible and believe me, when I came to revision, my typed notes were a dream to work from.
Some lectures though I could cut out the middle man and type my lecture notes in the lecture. This occurred in lectures such as Values, Laws and Ethics and Soc Pop. This also saved time but I would not do this during physiology as it was just too much to keep up with.
Anatomy however, was a different story. I ALWAYS hand wrote my notes during the lectures and my “typed” notes were also handwritten. This is because (no shock here) Anatomy requires a LOT of pictures. Typing long paragraphs just does not work for anantomy. Drawing out the concepts helps hugely and enables me to visualise them. Granted, at Warwick, Anatomy is well taught and we get a lot of teaching time to so my notes aren’t always the most detailed as I tend to pick things up but it was important to me that my notes made sense to me (even if it was re-writing the whole lecture). When it came to writing the notes up , I used the 3D anaotmy app on my tablet to draw around the bones and muscles so I could re-create the structures correctly, but still putting my own spin on it.
It doesn’t matter how you take your notes in the end. What does matter is that they make sense and that you try your best to get everything done as you go along. There is no worser feeling than getting to the end of the year and realising you have to go back to the beginning because you didn’t write up that week of lectures. Trust me. As long as you keep on top of it, you understand it and you keep going. Whatever method you use is the right one 😊
MedBeeMedic 