Category education

Medical Mnemonics

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Medical mnemonics are memory aids that help students and clinicians quickly recall complex information—everything from cranial nerves to causes of diseases. They were absolute lifesavers for me during medical school, and some still come in handy for my medical practice. Here are some of the most widely used and useful ones, grouped by topic:

🧠 Cranial Nerves (Order & Function)

Names (in order):
On Old Olympus’ Towering Top, A Finn And German Viewed Some Hops
→ Olfactory, Optic, Oculomotor, Trochlear, Trigeminal, Abducens, Facial, Vestibulocochlear, Glossopharyngeal, Vagus, Accessory, Hypoglossal

Function (Sensory/Motor/Both):
“Some Say Marry Money, But My Brother Says Big Brains Matter More”

❤️ Causes of Chest Pain (Serious)

“MONA” (also used in treatment of heart attacks):

  • Morphine
  • Oxygen
  • Nitroglycerin
  • Aspirin

“ABCDE” for life-threatening causes:

  • Aortic dissection
  • Pulmonary Bolus (embolism)
  • Coronary syndrome (heart attack)
  • Dead lung (tension pneumothorax)
  • Esophageal rupture

🧬 Lupus Diagnostic Criteria

“SOAP BRAIN MD”

  • Serositis
  • Oral ulcers
  • Arthritis
  • Photosensitivity
  • Blood disorders
  • Renal involvement
  • ANA
  • Immunologic disorders
  • Neurologic symptoms
  • Malar rash
  • Discoid rash

🧪 Causes of Anion Gap Metabolic Acidosis

“MUDPILES”

  • Methanol
  • Uremia
  • Diabetic ketoacidosis
  • Propylene glycol / Paracetamol
  • Infection / Iron / Isoniazid
  • Lactic acidosis
  • Ethylene glycol
  • Salicylates

🫀 Heart Valve Auscultation Areas

“All Physicians Take Money”

  • Aortic → Right 2nd intercostal space
  • Pulmonic → Left 2nd intercostal space
  • Tricuspid → Left lower sternal border
  • Mitral → Apex (5th intercostal, midclavicular line)

🦴 Carpal Bones (Wrist)

“Some Lovers Try Positions That They Can’t Handle” ***This one is one of my favorites!***

  • Scaphoid
  • Lunate
  • Triquetrum
  • Pisiform
  • Trapezium
  • Trapezoid
  • Capitate
  • Hamate

🧫 Tendons In Thumb

“SEX LAB” ***Another favorite!***
Short Extensor (Extensor Pollicis Brevis), Long Abductor (Abductor Pollicis Longus)

🩺 Symptoms of Hypocalcemia

“CATS go numb”

  • Convulsions
  • Arrhythmias
  • Tetany
  • Spasms/Stridor

🧍‍♂️ Parkinson’s Disease Symptoms

“TRAP”

  • Tremor
  • Rigidity
  • Akinesia (or bradykinesia)
  • Postural instability

🧠 Stroke Warning Signs

Mnemonic: “FAST”

  • Face drooping
  • Arm weakness
  • Speech difficulty
  • Time to call emergency services

🧠 Anticholinergic Toxicity

Classic Description:

  • Hot as a hare
  • Blind as a bat
  • Red as a beet
  • Mad as a hatter
  • Dry as a bone

🧠 Why the Weird Ones Work

Why the weird ones work

The more inappropriate, vivid, or absurd, the better your brain encodes it. Medicine is heavy memorization—so people lean into humor (even dark humor) to survive it.

Why mnemonics matter

They’re not just for exams—they’re used daily in clinical settings where quick recall can be critical. Good mnemonics:

  • Simplify complex lists
  • Improve speed under pressure
  • Reduce errors in diagnosis or treatment

The Language of Medicine

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Medical school introduces an enormous volume of new terminology—often estimated in the range of 10,000–20,000 new terms over the course of training. These include anatomical structures, physiological processes, disease names, diagnostic procedures, and pharmacological agents. Early on, students can feel overwhelmed because nearly every sentence in a lecture may contain multiple unfamiliar words.

This is why learning medicine is often compared to studying a foreign language. Like in fields such as Latin or Ancient Greek, much of medical vocabulary is built from common roots, prefixes, and suffixes. For example, once you know that “cardio-” refers to the heart and “-itis” means inflammation, terms like “carditis” or “pericarditis” become easier to decode. Over time, students stop memorizing isolated words and instead start recognizing patterns and constructing meaning from word components—just like becoming fluent in a new language.

As fluency develops, “medical speak” begins to feel natural. What initially required conscious effort—translating and interpreting terms—becomes almost automatic. Students and physicians can quickly process complex information, communicate efficiently with colleagues, and even think in medical terminology without mentally converting it back to everyday language. In clinical settings, this fluency allows for precise, concise communication that would otherwise take much longer in lay terms.

In short, while the early stages of medical education can feel like immersion in a completely unfamiliar language, consistent exposure and practice transform that complexity into a kind of second nature. I truly feel very blessed and privileged to have learned the language of medicine. It is an incredible honor, and something I never take for granted.

Latin Tongue

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A very common tendency among young people who intend to go to medical school is to take Latin during high school. It is so common that a reference to this tendency was featured on a recent episode of The Pitt. As it turns out, I took 2 years of Latin in high school, in anticipation of going to medical school. Though I don’t remember much from my two years of high school Latin, having a knowledge of Latin helped out tremendously while I attended medical school.

That’s because:

  • I internalized roots, prefixes, and suffixes
  • I got comfortable with unfamiliar word structures
  • I learned to infer meaning instead of memorizing blindly

That “mental framework” sticks even when the formal knowledge fades.

1. The language of medical terminology
A huge portion of medical vocabulary is derived from Latin and Greek. Words like cardiology (cardio = heart, Greek; -logy = study of) or renal (Latin renes = kidneys) are essentially built from these roots. When you’ve studied Latin, you’re not just memorizing terms—you’re decoding them.

So instead of rote memorization, you instinctively break words apart:

  • hepatosplenomegaly → liver + spleen + enlargement
  • subcutaneous → under + skin

That gives you a major efficiency advantage in medical school, where the vocabulary load is enormous.

2. Precision and consistency in communication
Medicine depends on extremely precise language. Latin (and Greek) provides a standardized, unchanging base. Unlike modern languages, Latin isn’t evolving, so terms don’t shift in meaning over time. That stability is why anatomical structures and diagnoses are still named this way worldwide.

3. Anatomy is basically Latin immersion
Anatomy in particular is saturated with Latin:

  • foramen magnum
  • corpus callosum

If you’ve had Latin, even at a basic level, these aren’t just intimidating strings—they’re descriptive phrases. That makes learning anatomy feel more logical and less arbitrary.

4. Training your brain for pattern recognition
Latin study emphasizes grammar, structure, and parsing complex sentences. That skill translates surprisingly well to medicine:

  • analyzing symptoms → like parsing a sentence
  • recognizing patterns → like identifying word roots and endings

It builds a kind of mental discipline that helps with clinical reasoning and absorbing dense information.

5. Historical tradition (that still lingers)
Medicine in Europe was formalized when Latin was the language of scholarship. Universities, early medical texts, and anatomical naming conventions all used Latin. Even though modern education has moved on, the terminology never got replaced—so the legacy persists.

Of Encyclopædias And The Dewey Decimal System

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books, reading, library, school, study, encyclopedia, education

For those of us who were kids before the computer age, research wasn’t instant—it was an event.

If you needed to look something up, you didn’t “Google it.” You got up, walked to a shelf, and physically pulled down a heavy book. Information had weight. It had a smell. It had thin, almost tissue-like pages and tiny print crammed into double columns.

The Pride of Encyclopædia Britannica

In many homes, owning a full set of Encyclopædia Britannica was a point of pride. Those volumes—often bound in dark leather or gold-lettered spines—sat in living rooms like a declaration: We value learning here.

They were expensive. Really expensive. Families didn’t just casually buy them. Salesmen would come door to door, making their pitch at the kitchen table. Parents would agree to installment payments, and the set might arrive one volume at a time. There was something ceremonial about sliding the newest letter into place on the shelf. As a matter of fact, my mother had to order each volume separately, and because she couldn’t afford to buy a bookcase, my home research sessions required me to dig through large boxes which housed the volumes, an especially tedious task if the volume I required was at the bottom of the box.

If your family didn’t own Britannica, you might have had something like World Book instead—or you relied on the library. Either way, research meant flipping to the correct letter, scanning entries alphabetically, and following cross-references at the bottom of the page: See also: Mesopotamia.

And that was another thing—we learned to browse. You’d start looking up “Egypt” and end up twenty minutes later reading about papyrus, pyramids, or Cleopatra. You discovered things by accident because you had to pass them physically to get where you were going.

Row of Books in Shelf

The Library and the Dewey Decimal System

The public library felt almost sacred.

First came the card catalog—long wooden drawers filled with index cards. You flipped through them by author, title, or subject, copying down call numbers in pencil.

Then you had to decode the Dewey Decimal System. Every book had its numerical address:

  • 500s for science
  • 800s for literature
  • 900s for history

Once you had the number—say 940.53 for World War II—you’d go hunting down the aisle, scanning the spines in numerical order. It was like a treasure hunt. Sometimes the book wasn’t there. Maybe someone else had it. Maybe it was mis-shelved. That was part of the adventure.

And when you found it, you felt like you’d earned it.

Microfiche and the Glow of the Machine

If you needed old newspaper articles or archival materials, you didn’t scroll—you used microfiche or microfilm.

You’d load a transparent sheet or spool into a bulky reader machine, turn knobs, and watch enlarged pages of tiny, photographed print glow onto a screen. The machine hummed. The image jittered. You scrolled slowly, hoping not to overshoot the date you needed.

Printing a copy involved a loud clunk and the smell of warm toner.

It wasn’t convenient. It wasn’t fast. But it felt serious. Research required patience, and patience created focus. You couldn’t open fifteen tabs. You worked with what was in front of you.

What We Gained (and Lost)

There was frustration, yes. But there was also depth.

You couldn’t skim five sources in thirty seconds. You had to read. You had to navigate systems. You learned how information was organized—alphabetically, numerically, hierarchically. You developed a kind of mental map of knowledge.

Today, answers are immediate and limitless. Back then, knowledge felt finite but tangible. It lived on shelves. It arrived one volume at a time. It glowed on a microfiche screen.

And when you finally found the answer you were looking for, it felt like discovery—not just retrieval.

The Origin Of Æ

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The letter Æ (lowercase æ), often called ash, has a long and fascinating history that connects ancient writing systems to modern European languages.

1. Origins in Ancient Alphabets

The story begins with the Greek alphabet. Greek had a letter called Ancient Greece diphthong αι (alpha + iota), which represented a sound similar to the “ai” in aisle (in early pronunciation).

When the alphabet spread westward, the Ancient Rome adapted parts of the Greek writing system into the Latin alphabet. In early Latin, the diphthong ae represented a sound like the “ai” in aisle as well.

2. From “AE” to a Single Letter

In classical Latin writing, A and E were written separately (ae). However, over time:

  • The pronunciation shifted from a diphthong (“ai”) to a simpler “e” sound.
  • Scribes began writing the two letters together as a ligature (a combined character).

This combined form became Æ, especially in medieval manuscripts.

Examples in Latin:

  • Caesar
  • aeternus
  • aer

In some later spellings, especially in English, the ligature was simplified to just e (e.g., medieval instead of mediæval).

3. Use in Old English

In England, during the Old English period (around 450–1100 CE), æ became a full letter of the alphabet, not just a stylistic combination.

It represented a distinct vowel sound — something like the “a” in cat.

Example:

  • dæġ (modern English: day)

Old English scribes borrowed the letter from Latin manuscripts and adapted it to represent a native sound.

4. Use in Modern Languages

Today, æ is still used as a distinct letter in several languages:

  • Iceland
  • Denmark
  • Norway

In these languages, it represents a vowel sound similar to the “a” in cat or a slightly broader front vowel.

5. Æ in Modern English

In modern English, æ is mostly stylistic or archaic. You may see it in older spellings like:

  • archæology
  • encyclopædia
  • mediæval

Today, these are usually written without the ligature (archaeology, encyclopedia, medieval).

Summary

The letter æ:

  • Originated from the Greek diphthong αι
  • Became ae in Latin
  • Fused into a ligature in medieval writing
  • Became a full letter in Old English
  • Survives today in Scandinavian and Icelandic alphabets

It’s a great example of how writing systems evolve over time — shaped by pronunciation changes, scribal habits, and cultural exchange.

Word Geek

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One of the best days for me in May of 1977.

As a child, I was absolutely intoxicated by words. Not just the ordinary, pedestrian ones — I mean the labyrinthine, tongue-twisting, sesquipedalian marvels that felt like verbal acrobatics. I collected them the way other kids collected trading cards.

I didn’t just know the longest word in the English language – pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis — I reveled in it. I made sure to memorize it at the age of 8, savoring each syllable like a procession: pneu-mo-no-ul-tra-mi-cro-scop-ic-sil-i-co-vol-ca-no-co-ni-o-sis. Twenty-three letters? Please. That was merely a warm-up. This beefcake carried 45 letters, and it denoted a coal miner’s lung disease, which was even better since it also appealed to the medical nerd portion of my personality. I wanted words with gravitas, with architectural complexity.

My mom recognized early on that spelling wasn’t just a skill for me — it was a vocation. When I told my mother that there would be a major spelling bee at the end of the 6th grade year, she took it upon herself to quiz me daily in order to fortify my chances of taking home the coveted title and medal. Every afternoon she would sit across from me at the kitchen table with a list. Not pedestrian little morsels like “apple” or “chair.” No. She would lob in “chiaroscuro,” “defenestration,” “antidisestablishmentarianism.” It was our ritual — my daily lexical calisthenics in preparation for the apotheosis: the 6th-grade spelling bee.

And when that day came, I was incandescent with anticipation.

One by one, students were shot down, failing in their efforts to deliver impeccably spelled words, until there were only two of us left: Martha Phelps and me. Martha Phelps was supremely confident, practically effervescent with self-assurance. Then she was given the word facetious. I remember thinking how deliciously ironic it was, because it contains all five vowels in order. She began: F-A-C-E-I-O-U-S… and stopped. Smug. Triumphant.

Except.

Except there was no t.

Mrs. Mackenzie — stately, unflappable — adjusted her glasses and said, without saying a word, turned to face me.

Mrs. Mackenzie repeated the word: facetious.

The room shifted. Martha’s smile curdled.

Oh, I had been waiting for this.

F-A-C-E-T-I-O-U-S.

Each letter placed with surgical precision. The t nestled perfectly where it belonged — the quiet hero of the word.

And just like that, victory. Not by accident. Not by guesswork. By devotion. By daily drills at the kitchen table. By loving words enough to memorize even the absurdly magnificent ones.

I didn’t just win with facetious. I won because I understood that words have bones and ligaments and hidden symmetries. And I adored every single one of them.

The Hood I Wore At Medical School Graduation

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There’s something undeniably powerful about donning a hood during a graduation ceremony, especially since it marks the culmination of years of hard work in a graduate or professional program. When you walk up to the center stage, hood draped across your shoulders, it’s like a visual representation of the dedication, sacrifices, and intellectual growth you’ve achieved. The hood symbolizes a kind of academic mastery—it’s a historical garment, evoking the traditions of scholars going back centuries. You can almost feel the weight of those who’ve come before you, standing on the shoulders of giants as you approach the moment when the degree is officially conferred.

As you take each step toward the stage, there’s an immense sense of pride. You’ve earned this. The hood feels like a badge of honor, a marker of your journey through intense learning, late nights, and possibly even moments of doubt. But all of that fades in the glow of the moment when your name is called, and you walk forward to receive your diploma. There’s a certain grace in the ceremony, too—the rhythm of the procession, the silence that fills the air, and the way the hood falls perfectly over your attire, a quiet but unmistakable signal that you’ve reached an academic pinnacle.

The most meaningful aspect of donning the hood for me at my medical school graduation ceremony was that I asked my mom to put it on me when I walked onto the stage to receive my diploma. My mother always believed in me, encouraged me, and was beaming with pride on the day that I graduated from medical school. I couldn’t imagine anyone else placing the esteemed hood across my shoulders.

A very special day in 2001 for me…

Another cool aspect is how the hood is often tied to your field of study through its color. Each color has a specific meaning, representing the different types of graduate studies or professional disciplines. For instance:

  • White often symbolizes a degree in Arts, Humanities, or Letters, evoking clarity, light, and knowledge.
  • Purple is typically associated with Law, representing authority and the prestige of the legal profession.
  • Green might be worn by those earning degrees in Medicine or Public Health, symbolizing healing and growth.
  • Red is often linked to Theology or Divinity, reflecting the historical connection to religious institutions.
  • Dark Blue or Navy signifies Philosophy, capturing the intellectual depth and complexity of the field.
  • Yellow or Gold can represent Science, linking the pursuit of knowledge with the brightness of discovery.
  • Silver Gray is a color worn by those in the field of Social Work or Library Science, representing service and support for the community.

The fact that each color is tied to a discipline makes the hood a visual and symbolic tribute to the unique paths that graduates have taken. It’s like wearing your field’s identity proudly for a moment before the real world asks you to put your knowledge to use. There’s an elegance in the subtlety of these colors, the way they convey a deep history while celebrating your own place within it.

The hood isn’t just an accessory—it’s a symbol of a journey and a transition, from student to professional, and from learner to expert. The way it fits, the way it feels on your shoulders, and the way it marks your success is incredibly meaningful. How did you feel about the moment of walking with your hood at your graduation?

Daily Duolingo Sessions

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My streak as of March 17, 2022

As of today, April 12th, I have completed a 567 day streak on Duolingo, and I have every intention of continuing my daily language practice on the user friendly app. I began this streak with Japanese and Spanish as my daily languages, and added Portuguese at the beginning of March because I want to have some familiarity with the language when I visit Portugal in May. Duolingo is an excellent app for brushing up on languages or even learning a new one, and Duolingo Plus is only $84 per year. For that price, you can practice as many languages as you’d like.

I have practiced a bunch of languages, besides the ones I mentioned previously, on Duolingo over the past several years (French, German, Hungarian, Latin, Italian, and Hawaiian), and I love the fact that I can jump back into practicing any of those languages if I’d like. Though I took French and Latin in high school, I am rusty in those languages, and I only know a small amount of Hungarian, German, Italian, and Hawaiian. It is important for me to polish my Spanish speaking and reading skills constantly, not only because I was immersed in it when I would visit my dad and his children from his second marriage, but also because I don’t want to lose the skills I learned from Spanish classes I took throughout grade school, high school and college. I also feel a responsibility to learn as much Japanese as I can, since I am half Japanese, took Japanese in college, and intend to visit Japan again in the future.

Duolingo truly is a fantastic way to learn any language which is in their system. I highly recommend it!

Ten Words You Need To Stop Misspelling

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https://theoatmeal.com/comics/misspelling

https://theoatmeal.com/

Check out Matthew Inman’s amusing blog post which covers ten words he believes people should stop misspelling. I must say that I agree wholeheartedly with Matt regarding the issue of misspelled words. For those who are interested, you can even purchase a poster of the blog post, which could serve as a not-so-subtle reminder to those afflicted with spelling and grammar faults to pay attention.

The Men Who Built America – Financial Titans

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When I was a child, American history was taught in a very static manner.  We were expected to memorize important dates and factoids, to the point where epic points in history like the Industrial Revolution, though pivotal and vital to the development of America, seemed dull and uninteresting.  It took imaginative historical books which I have read over recent years, and shows such as “The Men Who Built America”, for a keen interest in American history to ignite within me.

Most recently, I stumbled upon “The Men Who Built America” right around Halloween when I was searching on Amazon Prime Video for an entertaining show to watch. What caught my eye was the fact that the television series was described on IMDB as a miniseries which “shines a spotlight on the influential builders, dreamers and believers whose feats transformed the United States, a nation decaying from the inside after the Civil War, into the greatest economic and technological superpower the world had ever seen. The Men Who Built America is the story of a nation at the crossroads and of the people who catapulted it to prosperity.”  Those words were enough to draw me in.

The focus of this series centers around the lives of Cornelius Vanderbilt, John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, J. P. Morgan, and Henry Ford.

Check out these descriptions of the episodes:

1 “A New War Begins” Ruán Magan David C. White, Keith Palmer October 16, 2012
Cornelius Vanderbilt grows from a steamboat entrepreneur to the head of a railroad empire, and gets into a heated rivalry with James Fisk and Jay Gould; the up and coming John D. Rockefeller founds Standard Oil. Many business owners lay their own rail lines which leads to the Panic of 1873. Later, Rockefeller starts to expand his wealth by diverting his business from the railroads to a new innovation, oil pipelines.
2 “Bloody Battles” Patrick Reams David C. White, Keith Palmer October 23, 2012
Andrew Carnegie builds an empire around steel, but finds himself struggling to save face after the ruthless tactics of his business partner, Henry Clay Frick, result in both the Johnstown Flood as well as the bloody 1892 strike at the Homestead Steel Works.
3 “Changing the Game” Patrick Reams David C. White, Patrick Reams, Keith Palmer October 30, 2012
J. P. Morgan proceeds to banish the dark with the direct current electric light of Thomas Edison, but the two soon face serious competition from the alternating current of George Westinghouse and Nikola Tesla. As the 19th century comes to a close, the titans of industry must try to work together to stop a new threat in budding politician William Jennings Bryan, who threatens to dissolve monopolies in America.
4 “When One Ends, Another Begins” Patrick Reams David C. White, Keith Palmer November 11, 2012
Rockefeller, Carnegie and Morgan team up to help elect William McKinley to the U.S. presidency by paying for his 1896 campaign, to avoid a possible attack on monopolies. However, fate intervenes when McKinley is suddenly assassinated, and Vice President Theodore Roosevelt assumes the presidency and promptly begins dissolving monopolies and trusts in America. Meanwhile, Morgan buys out Carnegie Steel to make Carnegie the richest man in the world, and Henry Ford designs an affordable automobile with his Model T and starts his own business, Ford Motor Company, which sets a new business model for companies to follow.

It was mostly my interest in finance which locked me into this series, but I also truly enjoyed learning about the historical impact which these great men had on a sophomore nation.  If you’re looking for a great series which is relatively short (you could binge watch this over a weekend), then this is for you.