Ask Slashdot: Best Software For Med-School Note-Taking?

First time accepted submitter spencj writes "I'm just starting year two of medical school, and I've been rethinking the way I make and create notes/study guides. One of the problems I've considered is that we learn about the same topic in several arenas. For example, if I consider some disease like coronary artery disease, I will likely learn about this topic in cardiology, radiology, pharmacology, and then in outside study resources such as Kaplan guides, online resources, etc.. Further, it will come up in August, October, March, April, etc.. My dream app is some combination of Excel, Visio, Word, and a blog where I could tag selections of text. If I then 'filtered' by certain parameters, it would collapse all the information I'd collected from different resources. For example, say I create a flowchart in Visio, take some notes in Word, create a table in Excel, and save from text from a web resource. I tag each item with 'coronary artery disease,' then I want to quickly query for all of my items with this tag. Is there any kind of app or resource that can pull this off? Medical students everywhere would be grateful."

One Note?

[Andrio]

See subject.

Microsoft OneNote

[lw54]

Since you're needing to record info from Word, Excel and Visio, OneNote would be perfect to consolidate the information in place. You can also include images, video and webpages.

Paper, Pen, and...

[wjcofkc]

My favorite way to study in a situation like yours is to first take my notes the old fashioned way: with paper and pen in class. I then take those notes, along with applicable textbooks, and manually compose them in whatever software makes sense, typically LibreOffice Writer. The act of first taking notes the old fashioned way, and then cross referencing with the textbook, while in turn creating a highly refined set of notes in an application, strongly re-enforces what I am studying in my brain. I know that's kind of like wrote rehearsal, which is considered a bad study habit, but I disagree with that philosophy (wrote rehearsal = good). Plus the act of composing more highly refined notes from your originals takes it one step beyond that.

Past that, I really don't think there is a single application that will filter all your notes automagically into so many different formats.

Re:pen and paper

[Anonymous Coward]

Learn shorthand. Get a good pen to avoid writing fatigue, I always preferred a mechanical pencil for mistakes(staedtler http://www.staedtler.com/en/products/pencils-accessories/mechanical-pencils/graphite-925-mechanical-pencil/#id=256&tx_solr%5Bpage%5D=1 [staedtler.com]) ...that one has metal grip and cap w/ plastic tube. It will last for years and years.

Don't go smaller then .5 lead it breaks too much(.5-.7). Use a soft lead(B-HB, don't use F-H)to avoid writing fatigue/tearing paper, and it's easier to erase since you aren't pressing as hard. ...and a tube click eraser, use the one in the pencil cap for backup.

I always used graph paper(thin 3 ring binder) which allowed writing and technical drawing. Just don't get too fine of grid(such as EE paper). You can download images and print your own if you can't find anything appropriate, this may be most appropriate as you can size the grid to you writing size.

As to the computer... you won't have time. The great thing about a 3 ring binder is you can rearrange later if needed, e.g. take 1 thin binder to school, arrange the different classes/notes in their own bigger binder later. Your back will thank you.

Re:Um...as a patient, I'm hoping you MEMORIZE it

[Anonymous Coward]

>> I'm just starting year two of medical school, and I've been rethinking the way I make and create notes/study guides

As a former medical student (and now practicing physician), I'm amazed you're going to class in the second year. It may sound like a joke, but at my medical school, the entire second year class could not fit into the auditorium at the same time....people just stopped going, and relied on the note taking service and read their books or the syllabus provided for the class. I guess if you're in a PBL program it may be different....but then your material is already organized that way (see below for PBL)

You're scaring me dude. The doctors that I've known have been able to cram away a lot of information in their heads, and note-taking wasn't one of their problems in year two of med school. As a potential patient, you have me worried already...

Meh....you learn a lot of junk in the first two years of school. Its like learning to rivet and weld so that you can fly a plane....yeah, it's nice to know, but most pilots don't need to know it. The problem is, to be a good doctor you need to know a lot of specialized information, that requires understanding of basic material. Since you don't (can't) know what you're going to specialize in in the future, they fill your head with what we think a doctor should know. As time and training go on, you forget a lot of the information that you don't use (and don't need to know). But a lot of it is still there....I amaze my residents by recalling tidbits I learned 10 years ago and never saw or used since...that's what makes a good physician a great one.

And as far as sitting in class and memorizing it....I will just tell you that you have no idea of the volume of material that is poured into medical students. Which in and of itself is a problem, but you also (as mentioned) need to mentally cross-reference the material to other lectures over several years. Part of this is why they have been doing problem based learning....instead of teaching anatomy, physiology, microbiology, genetics, pharmacology, pathology, neuroscience, and clinical medicine as separate classes, they now teach a cardiology core where you learn heart anatomy, heart physiology, heart microbiology, heart genetics, heart pharmacology, heart pathology, heart neuroscience(lol), and clinical heart medicine, followed by the pulmonary core....etc

Re:pen and paper

[camperdave]

Whatever you do, GET A SYSTEM.

For years was taking notes with paper and pen. I used the four color BIC pen; black is for titles, section headings, etc. Blue is for main body notes. Red is for references and underlining, and green is for activities, suggested reading, etc. I would also recommend the Cornell notetaking system. Also get some good notebooks so that you're not going to lose pages.

The problem with paper is searching for information. Using a system like Cornell will help for searching, but nothing beats an electronic search. For that, I'd recommend Microsoft OneNote. OneNote lets you have audio, video, text, clipart, and screen captures on the page. You can even insert documents from Word and Excel. You can arrange notes hierarchically, and cross link notes from other sections. OneNote allows collaberation. Although, I have not tried it (due to not having a tablet PC), you can even hand-write notes a-la pen and paper. OneNote can OCR this for you so that you don't have to try to read your own handwriting - a bonus in my case.