How To Study Pathology Easily

Study Tip 4 – Compare and contrast the disease processes. Every time you are studying something, ask yourself “How is this different from . . . and how is this similar to . . . ?” Pathology is full of dichotomies and many disease processes overlap each other, thus making it easy to confuse them with each other. Some common examples are Benign vs. Malignant, Transudate vs. Exudate, Grade vs. Stage, Reversible Injury vs. Irreversible. Some students will benefit from making tables to keep the concepts and details separated.

Clinical Pathology

A site for medical students, scientists, researchers and health specialists

How to study Pathology? Four Useful Tips

Study Tip 1 – Keep it organized. Pathology is a high-volume course that progresses and builds on complex concepts. However, many areas of this study can be broken down and grouped to help the student organize and easily recall the pathologic steps. Take one general topic, like Tissue Necrosis, and list all its subtypes underneath it. Keep the diagrams concise so that you may review them for quick reference and comparison as you continuing studying the subject.

Study Tip 2 – Start with the big picture. Sift through the assigned chapter or unit in the beginning of your studies and get a rough idea of what you will be covering. While you are skimming through, decide which material must be thoroughly understood versus the minor details that can be memorized closer to the exam date. Take your time and think through the steps of the major concepts while you have plenty of time before the test. Gene products, chromosome location, and toxin names should be memorized after you are familiar with the terminology and pathologic processes. More than likely, the mundane facts will only reside in your short-term memory and will only frustrate you if you first attempt to memorize words and diseases you don’t understand.

Study Tip 3 – Know the terminology and nomenclature well. Most of the time this can be accomplished by paying attention to the stem of the word. Take hypertrophy for example, which describes an increase in cell size. The stem -trophy often refers to cellular growth and dimensions. If hyper- is added to any term, it usually means an increase, or greater than normal levels. So it is easy to see how the pathologic process of increased cell size is described by its term hypertrophy. Using this, we can infer that hypotrophy indicates decreased cell size. This study tip becomes very useful when differentiating types of cell changes and progression to cancer. For instance, the term carcinoma indicates that a malignant tumor is derived from epithelium, while sarcoma is derived from mesenchyme. In addition, the suffix -oma usually means a growth is benign, but keep in mind that there are always exceptions; such as, Melanoma and Lymphoma which are malignant tumors.

Study Tip 4 – Compare and contrast the disease processes. Every time you are studying something, ask yourself “How is this different from . . . and how is this similar to . . . ?” Pathology is full of dichotomies and many disease processes overlap each other, thus making it easy to confuse them with each other. Some common examples are Benign vs. Malignant, Transudate vs. Exudate, Grade vs. Stage, Reversible Injury vs. Irreversible. Some students will benefit from making tables to keep the concepts and details separated.

How to study Medical School Pathology, Psychopathology, and Neuroscience

Pathology, Psychopathology, and Neuroscience are your standard medical school classes. There’s really no tricks or gimmicks to learn the material—this is a core part of that “fire hydrant” onslaught that you hear far too often about. Pathology composes about 50% of USMLE Step 1 which should give you a sense of how important it is in the overall scheme of medical education.

Overview and goals of studying Pathology, Psychopathology, and Neuroscience

Pathology, Psychopathology, and Neuroscience lectures will go over the material but depending on the lecturer and the person writing the questions for the exam, there may be different emphases for each lecture. However, a good rule of thumb is to go through some questions banks, either written or online, before exams to have a better idea on what is tested. This applies, of course, to other courses as well, but is especially true in pathology, psychopathology, and neuroscience, where the large amount of material given makes it hard to digest and memorize everything. Studying smart is the name of the game here.

Steps to studying Pathology, Psychopathology, and Neuroscience (in order)

Read through the lecture notes/skim through the relevant section in your review book/required textbook of choice. Highlight and make marks as needed.

Make an outline of the lecture, looking how each lecture is organized.

Likely, lectures will be spotted with disease and disease processes; write these out and compare and contrast the differences between each disease. This can also be done with tables so that you can easily see and differentiate, for example, that PCOS has an LH/FSH ratio of >2.5 vs other reasons for hirsutism (ovarian tumors, adrenal tumors, and adrenal hyperplasia), which have ratios < 2. Essentially, the point is to make a graphic or reference so that you can quickly reinforce facts and concepts when you have a question regarding, as opposed to digging through a reference text. Neuroscience takes this a step further and asks you to know the disease that occurs with a lesion in a certain location in the brain.

Make flashcards

Use Anki to make flashcards that quiz you on one-to-one associations. Per 1 hour lecture, you really shouldn’t be making more than 20 flashcards. Flashcards are only to solidify quick question and answer type of questions such as, for example, small cell lung carcinoma secrete ACTH and ADH and squamous cell lung carcinoma cause hypercalcemia (due to PTH like substances). Quick. Fast. One to one associations.

Do questions

There are so many question banks and resources for pathology which you can use to quiz yourself and reinforce what you have learned.