12 Medical Mnemonic Techniques (With examples)

Mnemonic techniques are valuable learning aids that help recall and retain important information. These techniques date back to ancient Greece and have stood the test of time as people have experienced success using them to recollect crucial details. 

Medical mnemonic techniques will assist you in remembering medical terms, concepts, and facts. These techniques include acronyms, acrostics, method of loci, mind map, chunking, rhyme, note organization, visual, connection, peg, and spelling mnemonics. 

As a medical student, a healthcare professional, or if you work in a medical-related field, sometimes you must have found it difficult to remember or retain critical medical information. This isn’t surprising, especially when you face many medical terminologies in your everyday life. 

Remembering everyday information, even something like someone’s name can come with its own challenges. Now you are supposed to remember the specifics of human anatomy, infectious diseases, chronic illness, and drugs to cure people? Wow, that’s overwhelming to think about! 

If the very thought of forgetting a crucial detail has you shaking, not to worry. In this article, you will learn about useful mnemonic techniques that will help you remember essential information.

Let’s dig in!

1. Acronyms 

An acronym can be created by using the first letter of each word in a phrase or list of information to form an easy-to-remember word. You can use acronyms to remember the signs of a disease or steps to heal an illness.

 Some medical acronyms include:

• FAST: An acronym used to remember the signs of a stroke — Face, Arms, Speech, Time.
• RICE: An acronym to treat sprains and bruises — Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation.
• SOCRATES: An acronym used in the assessment of pain — Site, Onset, Character, Radiation, Associated Symptoms, Timing, Excarbeting and Relieving factors, Severity. 
• ASTHMA: This is used to recall asthma management —  Adrenergic agonists, Steroids, Theophylline, Hydration, Masked oxygen, Anticholinergics.
• WIPE: This is used to recall essential steps in a clinical examination — Wash your hands, Introduce yourself to the patient, Patient’s details, Explanation and gain patient’s consent.
• DR. GERM: This is for abdominal assessment — Distension, Rigidity, Guarding, Evisceration/Ecchymosis, Rebound tenderness, Masses.
• LEMON: For the assessment of the airway — Look externally, Evaluate, Mallampati, Occlusion, Neck Mobility. 
• CRAB: For the features of asthma — Chronic inflammation of the airways, Reversible airway obstruction, Airway hyper-responsiveness, Bronchial Inflammation. 
• DEMENTIA: To recall the causes of reversible dementia  — Drugs/ depression, Elderly, Multi-infarct/Medication, Environmental, Nutritional, Toxins, Ischemia, Alcohol. 
• MJ THREADS: Used to take the details of a patient’s medical history — Myocardial infarction, Jaundice, Tuberculosis, Hypertension, Rheumatic Fever, Epilepsy, Asthma, Diabetes, Stroke.
• FROM JANE: A mnemonic for recalling signs of endocarditis— Fever, Roth’s spots, Osler’s nodes, Murmur of heart, Janeway lesions, Anemia, Nail hemorrhage, Embolism.
• A Wet Bed: This for remembering functions of the kidney and complications of CKD— Acid-base balance: metabolic acidosis, Water removal: pulmonary edema, Erythropoiesis: anemia, Toxin removal: uremia, Blood pressure control: hypertension, Electrolyte balance: hyperkalemia, Vitamin D activation: bone-mineral disorder of chronic disease(CKD-BMD). 

You can create your own acronym or download an app that offers different kinds of suggestions.

2. Expression or acrostics mnemonics

Similar to creating an acronym, expression mnemonics allows you to create an easy-to-remember phrase with the first letter of each word. 

You’re already familiar with common expression mnemonics. Think, “Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally,” in math class when you were learning the order of operations. This technique can also be used to memorize medical terms. 

For future OBGYNs,  to remember placenta crossing substances, you can use: Want My Hot Dog — Waste, Antibodies, Nutrients, Teratogens, Microorganisms, Hormones, Drugs. 

Other examples include:

• Oh, Oh, Oh, To Touch And Fondle A Gorgeous Very Super Human: To remember the 12 cranial nerves—Olfactory nerve, Optic nerve, Oculomotor nerve, Trochlear nerve, Trigeminal nerve/Dentist nerve, Abducens nerve, Facial nerve, Auditory nerve, Glossopharyngeal nerve, Vagus nerve, Spinal accessory nerve,  Hypoglossal nerve.
• Some Lovers Try Positions That They Can’t Handle: For remembering the bones that make up the hand—Scaphoid, Lunate, Triquetrum, Pisiform, Trapezium, Trapezoid, Capitate, Hamate.
• Some Angry Lady Figured Out PMS: For recalling external carotid artery branches—Superior thyroid, Ascending pharyngeal, Lingual, Facial, Occipital, Posterior auricular, Maxillary, Superficial temporal.
• Here Many People That Ingest Lean Lamb, Try Vomiting: This is for remembering essential amino acids in diet—Histidine, Methionine, Phenylalanine, Threonine, Isoleucine, Leucine, Lysine, Tryptophan, Valine. 
• Two Zebras Bit My Chin: for the 5 terminal branches of the facial nerve—Temporal, Zygomatic, Buccal, Marginal, Mandibular, Cervical.

Again, this can be any expression or phrase that is memorable for you. 

3. Musical mnemonics

Using a popular catchy tune is another way to go about preparing yourself for an exam. This type of technique uses music to organize information in order to enhance memory and increase the chances of recalling the information. 

Students from UT Southwestern’s neurocritical care team created the Youtube video below to help others remember cranial nerves and their functions. They took the music from the popular song, Call Me Maybe by singer Carly Rae Jepsen. You can do the same for any subject with your favorite song. Take a listen! It’s catchy and informational.

4. Create a memory palace

Perhaps the best mnemonic techniques medical students can use is the memory palace, also referred to as the Method of Loci. To create a memory palace, you’ll need to use a location familiar to you. 

For example, what is your routine like when you come home after school? Say you walk into your apartment building, walk up the staircase to your apartment, open the door, and set your keys down on the kitchen table before heading to the fridge for a soda. 

A memory palace is a solid way of remembering a lot of detailed information to help prepare you for your next medical exam. While studying, associate pieces of information to this familiar path you use daily.

 For future neurologists, all of these places could be the details of the brain’s right temporal lobe. 

These are the steps you can follow to create a memory palace:

• Step 1: Choose a place that is most familiar to you. It can be your office, home, or school.
• Step 2: Draw up your route to get to these places. For instance, say you get to your gate, pass a restaurant, cross the road and go over to the next street before getting to your office.
• Step 3: Now, list the medical concepts or terms you wish to memorize. 
• Step 4: Take each of the items on the list, make a mental image of the name and place them on each locus of your memory palace. For instance, you can take the name of one of the diseases on your list and put it in your apartment elevator. 

5. Mind map

Another helpful tool when studying for a medical exam is creating a mind map. This technique involves focusing on one central idea. Then, create a diagram of ideas, concepts, facts, and figures.  

The mind map creates an outline of complex information, and the connecting lines act as the connection between information. 

A mind map can turn a long list of monotonous information into an easy-to-remember, highly organized diagram that aligns with the natural way your brain would go about things. 

Learn how to create mind maps for your med school classes with Iris Reading’s Mind Mapping Course. Click the link to learn more and sign up today before classes start again.

6. Chunking

Chunking is a mnemonic device that involves dividing pieces of random information and grouping them into clusters. Then, you can use a particular format to make it easier to remember them.

For instance, if you want to remember a long digit or the password to your online class, you can break it down into smaller sections. For example, if the password is 846t96e88w5tz55789,  you can break it down as thus:846t9-6e88-w5tz-y578.

You can also use this method to remember a medical diagram. For instance, if you want to recall the respiratory pathways, break down the images into visual chunks, making it easier for you to remember the pathways. 

Additionally, it can be used to break down a long list of medical terms. For instance, if you are learning about examples of antidepressants. You can start by grouping the various types of antidepressants:

• Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors(SSRIs).
• Serotonin-noradrenaline reuptake inhibitors(SNRIs).
• Noradrenaline and specific serotonergic antidepressants(NASSAs).
• Tricyclic antidepressants (TCAs).
• Serotonin antagonists and reuptake inhibitors (SARIs), and Monoamine Oxidase Inhibitors(MAOIs). 

Then proceed to learn about each drug that falls under each type of antidepressant. 

7. Rhyme mnemonics

This type of mnemonic works by grouping information in the form of a rhyming poem.

A popular rhyme mnemonic that you must have learned while growing up is :

Thirty days hath September,

April, June, and November;

All the rest have 31,

Excepting February alone, 

Which hath but 28 days clear,

And 29 in each leap year.

An example of a medical rhyme mnemonics is the one used to remember the anatomy of the tarsal bones of the feet: Chubby, Twisted, Never Could Cha-Cha-Cha —Calcaneus, Talus, Navicular, Cuboid, Cuneiforms(X3).

8. Note organization

This is a good mnemonic technique whereby the main ideas are organized into notes. This can be accomplished in three ways: By using notecards, outlines, or the Cornell system. 

Notecards

 If you wish to memorize new medical information, you can group them into a question and answer section in a notecard. The questions will be in front of the card, while the answers will be at the back of the card. 

Example:

What are the functions of the frontal lobes?

 

Voluntary movement, speech, attention, reasoning, and cognitive abilities.

Outlines

Drawing up an outline of the key ideas you wish to memorize will help you focus on the vital information. This is achieved by separating primary information from other details.

Cornell system

This type of note organization involves drawing a vertical line 3 inches from the left margin of a notebook. Then, the main ideas or the questions for the main ideas are placed on the left, while the answers are placed on the right.  

Questions What are the symptoms of asthma?

Answers  Chronic inflammation of the airways. Reversible airway obstruction. Airway hyper-responsiveness. Bronchial Inflammation.

9. Connection mnemonics

This mnemonic technique involves connecting the fact you wish to remember with information you already know. 

For instance, if you just met someone named “Allen” and there is a high possibility that you will forget their name, you can connect “Allen Avenue” to their name. 

If you have some challenges recalling all the effects of damage to the frontal lobe, but you are already familiar with the executive functions of that part of the brain. You can remember this information by thinking about what will happen if those cognitive abilities are suddenly impaired. 

10. Visual mnemonics

In this kind of strategy, visual imagery assists in recalling information either by mental pictures or real sketches. You can transform the information into a visual image in your mind’s eye to remember the name.

For instance, if you want to recall Tricyclic antidepressants (TCAs), you can visualize a mental image of a tricycle. Likewise, if you wish to remember Hippocampus, the brain structure that processes memories, you can imagine seeing a hippo on campus. 

11. Peg mnemonics

This method is used to recall a sequential or numbered list of information. If you want to memorize a  long list of information in the correct order on the list, this is your sure bet. 

For example, to remember the 12 cranial nerves, write down a numbered list and associate every word on the list with information you wish to recall.  As seen below:

1. Gun: Imagine an old factory where they make gun implants for your nose (olfactory).
2. Shoes: visualize (optics) for your shoes.
3. Tree: Imagine an octopus(oculomotor) driving a locomotive up a tree.
4. Door: Imagine a see-through truck with a giant eye(trochlear) on the door.
5. Hive: imagine getting honey from a hive and bees sting your genital (trigeminal).
6. Bricks: imagine seeing an abducted (abducens) pushing a brick.
7. Heaven: visualize a heavenly face(facial).
8. Plate: Imagine a bull on a vest while listening to a singing plate(vestibulocochlear/auditory)
9. Wine: Wine tasting for a glossy Pharoah called “Neal”(glossopharyngeal)
10. Hen: Imagine a hen in Las Vagas (vagus)
11. Snake eyes: Imagine a spinal(Spinal accessory) like cobra with big snake eyes.
12. Clock: Imagine a grandfather clock with a hypo-glossy (hypoglossal) pendulum. 

12. Spelling mnemonics

This technique can be used to recall a difficult word you find hard to spell correctly by using a pattern, phrases, or rules.  

There are many medical terms like that, and this strategy will help you recall their spellings.

For instance, if you wish to recall the spelling of “arithmetic,” you can say, “A Rat In The House May Eat The Ice Cream.”

Conclusion

Mnemonic techniques are needed to recall medical terms, information, and concepts. If you are experiencing some challenges memorizing them, a good option is to try these devices. 

There are several mnemonic techniques and they include acronyms, acrostics, method of loci, mind map, chunking, rhyme, note organization, visual, connection, peg, and spelling mnemonics. 

Improve your memorization and ability to retain crucial medical information by trying them out during your study or presentation at work.  

Alternatively, you can enroll in an online course to help improve your memory. Iris Reading’s Maximizing Memory course teaches you practical techniques to help you remember what you read and memorize key information.