Medical Memories

The patient had the Five Fs – Female, fat, fertile, flatulent and forty. Include the referred pain in the right rear shoulder, and yes, the differential diagnosis had to include a gallbladder attack.

As I wrote in the chart I had to chuckle a bit about the way I remembered things. Whenever I had to learn a list of things, be it the bones of the wrist, a drug protocol, or a set of disease symptoms, I found I always made up little humorous phrases to remember them. At first I thought I was the only medical student to use such a technique, but when I joined a study group I found most of the others used the same method. We all came to share our silly phrases, and we all remembered the best ones for each topic. We discovered that the crazier or more risqué the phrase, the easier it was to remember.

Now when I see a patient in the ER with suspected heart failure I don’t have to recall a long list of medications to administer, I just immediately remember the word MADDOG, which means Morphine, Aminophyllin (if needed), Diuretics, Digitalis, Oxygen, and Gases (Blood gases).

For those of you who are studying medicine, or who just may need a good laugh, here are some medical mnemonics most of us in the ER use:

The twelve Cranial Nerves have long Latin names and are difficult to remember on your own. If you are a masochist, try to memorize them now:

I-Optic, II-Olfactory, III-Oculomotor, IV-Trochlear, V-Trigeminal, VI-Abducens, VII-Facial, VIII-Acoustic (Vestibulocochlear), IX-Glossophrayngeal, X-Vagus, XI-Spinal Accessory, XII-Hypoglossal

Now see how much easier it is if you remember the following sentence: On Old Olympus Towering Tops, A Fat Assed German Viewed Some Hops. Generations of medical students have thought of fat assed Germans!

Here are the seven Bones of the Wrist: Scaphoid, Lunate, Triquetrum, Pisiform, Trapezium,
Trapezoid, Capitate, Hamate

Here is the phrase that makes it easier: Slowly Lower Tilly’s Pants To The Curly Hairs

A favorite in our ER is a way to remember the Pain History Checklist: Character, location, intensity, timing, onset, radiating to, irritating factor, symptoms associated with.

We all remember CLITORIS

And last but not least, dear readers, one of my favorites from anatomy class. Where do the nerves that innervate the groin leave the spinal chord? Why the 2nd, 3rd and 4th sacral vertebrae. Or, as we like to say here:

S2, 3, 4, keeps the penis off the floor.