Physiology was probably my most time consuming, detailed, and loaded course this previous semester. But it was also my favourite, most interesting and the one I achieved the highest grade for (yay!). So I thought I’d share with you how I studied for physiology, starting first with a brief overview of my “routine”, and then specific tips I used and would recommend.
Skimmed through lecture slides, and also slides of previous lecture if they’re related, focusing on key terms and concepts just to refresh memory.
Annotated slides with important details, esp. diagrams.
Marked important information that lecturer emphasised.
If I decided not to print lecture slides (since some lecturers literally just read off the slides), I would add any extra information into a notebook.
Sometimes I’d re-watch the recorded lecture if the lecture was particularly hard, or I felt as if I didn’t get all the important details down.
Watched YouTube videos/animations of certain physiological processes.
Wrote my notes according to learning outcomes – typed up, and added images from lecture slides/e-textbook or drew them.
Typed up notes would generally be 6+ pages for each lecture (a lot!), so I condensed each lecture onto one sheet of paper.
My final exam was all multiple-choice questions, so what I did was read the question and try to come up with my own answer before I looked at the options.
On the question sheet, I explained in a few words why the other options were wrong. No one’s going to be reading this, but it was a good way to reassure myself that I had indeed chosen the correct answer.
For difficult questions, I went through each option to figure out why/why not it could be the answer. But sometimes, a guess is the best thing you can do.
// Now for my specific tips //
Appreciate the complexity of your body. Your body isn’t divided into neat little compartments doing their own thing, not interacting with or having any influence on other parts. It’s so so so so so so so so so so so complex. There are so many pathways and reactions that occur, there is so much interaction between the components of your body. It’s complex. And amazing. And you need to appreciate that. Every time I engaged in anything to do with physiology (during lectures, when I was studying), I would think, “wow like totally wow this amazing like wow”. I know, I’m like totally eloquent.
There is a lot of content. In great detail. And it’s very challenging. See that colourful thing up there? That’s the mind map I created at the beginning of the semester of all the topics that were going to be covered. Of course your course won’t be the exact same, but hopefully it’ll give you a feel of the type/amount of content you can expect in physiology. This means you’ll have to put in the time and effort if you want to learn and as a bonus, achieve good grades. Schedule your time, make studying a habit, organise your notes and handouts.
This is NOT a subject you can cram for. You NEED to be as consistent as possible if you want to learn. (This applies to university/college subjects in general, guys. Very different to high school.)
Physiology is extremely cumulative. Relating to my first two points, in physiology everything builds up: therefore, there’s a lot of content and almost everything is linked together in some way or other. The tip that I’m going to repeat the most is: don’t fall behind. Stay on top of everything. In the first 10 lectures, everything we learnt was foundational. You couldn’t understand the topics that came afterwards properly if you didn’t fully understand these first 10 lectures. And even after these 10 lectures, it just kept on building. Don’t fall behind. Stay on top of everything. Don’t underestimate physiology.
Get help when you need it. Physiology is a very challenging course. And you need to be in charge of your own learning. You need to identify your weak points, the topics you’re having a hard time understanding. And you can’t do this if you don’t study consistently. You can’t email your lecturer 2 hours before exam asking them to explain the hypothalamic-pituitary axis to you. Don’t do this, you’ll look ridiculous. Instead, revise constantly, and as you encounter hard to understand concepts, ask your lecturers for help. That’s what they’re here for. Ask your colleagues (i.e. fellow students) for help. Ask your friends for help. If you think you need a tutor, get a tutor. Get help when you need it.
Most of your learning will happen in the lectures. If you pay attention. But really, I can’t stress the importance of turning up to lectures and paying attention! Don’t skip lectures if you can help it. If you do skip lectures, catch up right away – don’t leave it for the week before your exam, in which case you’ll be extremely stressed out by the sheer amount of content you’ll have to learn in such a short amount of time. Keep up with your lecturers. Don’t fall behind. Let me say it again, don’t fall behind. If you do fall behind, catch up as soon as possible. Physiology isn’t just memorising random processes and pathways; it’s much more than that. And you need to be active in your learning of physiology. Don’t fall behind. Please. Just. Try not to fall behind.
Listen to your lecturers. Throuhout the semester, various lecturers told us “you don’t need to know this”, “I don’t expect you to memorise all the enzymes involved in this pathway”, “this is out of depth for your couse, don’t worry about it”. Listen to them! Don’t waste your time trying to memorise things you have been explicitly told not to. Of course, you won’t know whether you need to know certain things if you don’t watch the lectures in some way, so… attend th lectures! Or watch the recordings if you can’t.
Use abbreviations. Certain terms come up very often. You don’t want to waste time during your lecture writing out the full spelling of terms that come up every 5 minutes. Abbreviate “hormone” to “hrm”, or “cardiovascular” to “cdv”. Make up your own abbreviations. Saves so much time in lectures.
Utilise your resources. I’ve never recommended anyone buy a textbook before, but I think physiology is one subject where having a good textbook is a useful investment (I recommend Human Physiology: An Integrated Approach by Silverthorn – edition 5/6 should be fine, you can buy a used book or rent). This textbook has great diagrams and explains concepts in an easy to understand manner. It’s not absolutely necessary to your learning, of course, but I would highly recommend getting a textbook if you want to.
Re-watch lectures if you have access to the recordings. This is what I did for particularly hard topics, or when I didn’t have enough time to get all the important information down, or when I paid very little attention during the actual lecture (it happens lol).
Watch YouTube videos. You can find animations that represent physiological processes visually, you can find different explanations of something you’re struggling to understand, and most importantly, you can watch them at your own pace. I’m sure you’ve heard of Khan Academy, but there’s also Bozeman Science, Anatomy Zone (they’ve started putting up some physio videos relating to muscle physiology), CrashCourse and #Physiology (a collection of physiology videos on YouTube). Just search any topic you want and you’re likely to find an array of videos waiting for you to watch them.
Focus on your lecture notes. This is what you’re going to be tested on. This is where your lecturer is going to extract questions from. This is what you need to base you study around on. This is what you need to base your notes around on. Not your textbook, your lecture notes! Okay, if your lecturer has crappy lecture notes, I would still follow the “structure” (i.e. headings, learning outcomes, etc.) of the lecture notes but obtain my information from other sources, textbooks, Internet etc.
Write condensed notes. I based my notes around my learning outcomes and had 2 sets of notes. 1) Very detailed typed-up notes and 2) handwritten condensed notes. In my detailed notes I added a lot of information, and these were the notes where I aimed to answer every learning outcome in great detail. This is where you combine all your resources (lecture notes, textbooks, online resources etc.). These ended up being around 250 pages long. I then used my detailed notes to write out my condensed notes. I started with the core concepts and ideas. This will be kind of like the skeleton of your notes. I went through my detailed notes and found the core information that I absolutely had to know to pass the exam. Then I went through my detailed again and added more detail to my condensed notes. Repeated this step. This is kind of like adding layers on top of the “core skeleton”. At the end, I had about 50 pages of condensed notes – 1 page for each lecture. Now, this isn’t always possible. If you have 4 exams for 4 subjects coming up in 2 weeks, you won’t find the time to go through this process. Instead, you’ll have to use other techniques such as flashcards, writing little summaries etc.
Create possible exam questions as you study. When I was making notes/revising, I would always try to come up with exam questions relating to the topic I was studying. Let’s say you’re making notes of the adrenal gland, more specifically what hormones are released from the adrenal medulla. Think of a possible question. “Which of the following are hormones released from the adrenal medulla?” Then think of 4/5 options. You can write these questions down and eventually, you’ll have created a bank of your own questions. Try to make the questions tricky (the example I gave is a very easy question). This is great for when you haven’t been provided with lots of practice questions, or you can’t seem to find any yourself.
Practice questions. In the previous point, I recommended creating your own questions. Now you have to sit down and work through them – as well as any questions you’ve been given/found. Do this under exam conditions. No peaking at notes. Remember – you’re not going to have access to your notes during the exam to peak at. Mark these questions, and identify the topics from which you answered incorrectly and focus on improving your understanding of these topics.
Learn Latin and Greek. Okay, I don’t mean enrol in language courses, but knowing some vocabulary does help in remembering certain terms in physiology. This isn’t always possible, but where you can apply this tip, it can help out. E.g. erythrocyte – a red blood cell, “erythros = red” and “cyte – cell”. Now whenever you see a word ending in “cyte” (phagocyte) you’ll know it’s a type of cell. My lecturer for Haematology was great at teaching us these little things, and it really did help me remember types of cells/and their functions. Another example, macrophage: macro = big, phage = eater. And what do macrophages do? Engulfs particles – so it’s a big cell that eats. Know that proteins usually end in “ in “ (haemoglobin, myoglobin, ferritin, transferrin etc.) , and enzymes usually end in “ ase “ (amylase, protease). You can also use this to learn the function of hormones, e.g. erythropoietin. You know erythro = red, so red blood cells, poiesis = production, and proteins end with “ in “. Putting it all together, erythropoietin is a protein hormone that promotes the production of red blood cells. You don’t have to be a master in these languages, but just get a hang of certain terms.
There are a lot of hormones to remember. Some hormones are easy to remember, like insulin, glucagon, erythropoietin, ADH, aldosterone. But others are a bit more difficult. You won’t have to remember every single hormone you encounter (my lecturers usually let us know which hormones we weren’t required to remember). Make a huge table with all the important hormones down the side, and these categories across the top: type of hormone (steroid, amine, protein), site of synthesis, site of release, target site, mode of action, action produced, what it’s triggered by and how its regulated. Do this as you learn them, and by the end, you’ll have a nice summary table. You can add more categories/remove some if you need to.
Write out pathways in your own words. I love drawing out pathways, and I usually remember pictures the I’ve drawn out during exams, but it’s also important to write out pathways in your own to words to make sure you actually know them. Explain the pathways in your own words, and in full sentences. There are a lot of pathways, do this for all of them.
Know your Wiggers diagram, and how to read spirometry graphs and electrocardiograms. It took me quite a while to wrap my head around the Wiggers diagram, but this is extremely important when you study the cardiovascular system. Understand it. Know what everything means. As for the spirometry graphs and electrocardiograms, know how to interpret this. Do you know what tidal volume is, residual volume? Can you read an electrocardiogram and explain whether it’s normal or not? If it’s not normal, what’s wrong with it? Practice lots of questions regarding electrocardiograms and the Wiggers diagram.
Homeostasis is huge part of physiology. If I were to describe physiology in one word, it would be “homeostasis”. Which is essentially what physiology is. For every process you’ll learn, you’ll also learn how it’s maintained and/or regulated. I used to get kind of annoyed at times because when I thought we were done with a process (e.g. contraction of muscles), the lecturer would turn to a slide – “regulation of muscle contraction”. Ah, here we go again. You’ll learn a lot of feedback pathways – follow point #14 for this as well.
Apply physiology to your life. Okay, I don’t know how to explain this one properly, and you might find it a bit of a weird thing to do. When you’re about to sleep, think about what’s happening in your body. Even if a few key terms are coming to your mind “melatonin… produced in pineal gland… circadian rhythms… PVN”, it’s still a great way to do a bit of quick revision. When you’re eating, when you’re about to do some exercise, you’ve just eaten an entire cake, what physiological processes are happening/about to occur?
Physiology is not anatomy. For me, anatomy was essentially all memorisation. While there is some memorisation in physiology, most of it is understanding, explaining, and applying your knowledge. Understanding: understand all the physiological processes that occur and the functions of cells/hormones etc. E.g. understand the function of the hormone erythropoietin – blood cell production. Explaining: you need to explain why and how. Why does this happen? How does that happen? Why doesn’t this happen instead? Why do we need that? Why is that hormone necessary? Why can’t this hormone be used? YOU CAN’T EXPLAIN WITHOUT UNDERSTANDING FIRST. E.g. explain how erythropoietin promotes blood cell production – you need to know what triggers its release, where it’s released from, what is its target site, what effect does it have? Applying: if I give you a scenario, can you explain to me what will happen and why? E.g. why do mountain climbers have higher levels of erythropoietin activity? Because they have low levels of oxygen (at high altitudes), this triggers erythropoietin release from the kidney, which acts on bone marrow to stimulate the production of red blood cells in order to increase the levels of oxygen in the mountain climbers. YOU CAN’T APPLY WITHOUT UNDERSTANDING AND EXPLAINING FIRST.
Physiology = Memorisation + Understanding + Explanation + Application
Lastly, physiology can be extremely overwhelming at times, and that’s completely okay. I remember bawling my eyes out before my final exam because I felt as if I didn’t know anything and was probably going to fail the exam (lol). But in reality, you know more than you think you do. So don’t become too stressed out and enjoy physiology because it’s abso-freaking-lutely awesome! ( It really is. )
And if you have any questions regarding anything I mentioned here, or anything really, feel free to message me!
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