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A guide for those just starting out didactic year or those overwhelmed with the self-guided study of Clinical Year and PANCE preparation.
Relaxed and ready to get into the Guide? Let's do it.
Notetaking is (just) one of the most time-consuming and overwhelming aspects of PA school. Whether you write your notes, type your notes, or do a combination of both - chances are, you're always wondering if you should be doing more, doing less, switching it up, collaborating, or doing SOMETHING different with the way you're summarizing the ever-increasing loads of information you're given.
As someone who took way too long to figure out what worked best during my didactic and clinical year, I hope to share some tips and tricks to help you find the same success with notetaking as a Physician Assistant student that I finally did - (and hopefully in less time).
Enjoy the entire Notetaking Guide or Jump to A Section Below
Efficient Notetaking
First and foremost, flexibility is key.
Go easy on yourself as you're finding what works best for you. Very often the style of notetaking you had during your undergrad/prerequisite studies are going to have to be tweaked a bit for the amount of information we're given in our graduate medical training. One of the biggest struggles a lot of my classmates and I had when we were just getting started, was accepting that there was simply not enough time to write our notes and something had to change.
The quicker we started opening our mind to changing styles that were no longer working for us and implemented a multimodal method of notetaking, further described below, the easier life became and the more efficient we became with our notes.
Multimodal Notetaking
When I first started didactic, I was wholeheartedly convinced that the only way for me to remember information was writing it down. Yet...
I quickly found the similarity between education provided in our PA training and "drinking water from a fire hose" meant that I would not be able to keep up with writing all my notes.
However, since this is what I had always done, I was unsure how to implement a change and if I would even be able to do so with the same success I previously had with writing everything.
Luckily, after much trial and error, I found utilizing a multimodal method for notetaking provided me with the highest yield information, allowed for ease in transitioning between lectures and clinical year, and provided multiple passes at information leading to increased recall during exam time.
I found success utilizing a combination of OneNote, Writing, Word, Group-Contribution, Question Writing, and Concept Maps provided me with the tools I needed to start succeeding.
OneNote allowed me to "print" the lecture PowerPoints directly into the OneNote section I made for each module of each class. After they uploaded onto my laptop, I could then continue to utilize writing notes right on top of the PowerPoint with a laptop pen. This saved my hand from rewriting power points, but still allowed myself to write what was hinted at as high yield (HY) during the lecture or anything I wanted to return to and clarify.
For each lecture a group of classmates and I would take turns of who typed the notes on Word, in the same color-coded format, and would send them to each other at the end of each day (or at least each week by 3rd semester). Then, we would use our notes to create questions based off the lecture notes and put them into a Quizlet to continue to self-study the lecture material (find all of my Quizlets linked under the didactic section on my PA-S resource page). We would also incorporate Picmonic characters into our notes for additional recall. For any material I found particularly difficult to recall, I would create concept maps and mnemonics, either on paper or on my whiteboard, to nail in the information.
During Clinical Year, the method was very similar except I formulated my notes based on the EOR Content Blueprint and incorporated the high yield found in practice questions while using Rosh Review, SmartyPANCE, or ExamMaster.
The Beauty of Master Notes in Didactic and Clinical Year
Master Notes are a compilation of nearly all the material learned in PA school, but I found they were not really necessary to start until 2nd semester (aka after Anatomy and Pathophysiology) because A&P are their own beasts that require a much different method of notetaking/studying (again, check out my didactic PA-S resources for more info) and you do not want all of that information overwhelming your notes.
For Master Notes, I recommend creating a template and sticking with it (or use mine found under the Clinical Medicine section here) that helps you keep in organized, concise, and easy to navigate.
If creating your own template, I recommend incorporating the following sections
Header - Module & Lecture
Introduction - Overarching information that applies to multiple disease processes in the section (enables easier recall of the HY differences between similar differentials)
Condition/Disease
General Info (HY A&P, Demographics, Risk Factors, "Most Commons", transmission/incubation, etc.)
Clinical Presentation (signs and symptoms)
Diagnostics (imaging and labs - include buzzwords with definitions, initial diagnostic test AND Definitive +/- Gold Standard diagnostic test)
Treatment (prophylaxis treatment, initial/first line treatment, definitive treatment)
Complications/ Prognosis (if applicable)
Images (unique presentations, imaging, HY histology, etc.)
Color-coding can add additional organization to your notes to ease skimming HY before exams. I used the following colors for my notes:
Most Common/ First Line/ Initials/ Definitives / Gold Standard
Buzzwords
Lab Results
Medication Name / Surgical Intervention
Complications / Adverse Effects
Keeping it High Yield: Question Writing
It is no secret that the easiest way to figure out what is high yield to incorporate into your notes is by doing practice questions Day ONE (as I have previously recommended in other posts and will continue to recommend time and time again). However, there is also so much benefit to using your notes (or group notes) to create (and then study) your own questions. This is form of active studying while also "rewriting" notes in a question format leading to additional passes and increased retention.
Writing your own questions allows you to look at the material in a different way and, eventually, once you start doing it enough, you can even start making extremely educated guesses about will come up on an exam after forcing yourself into a "test-maker" mentality. I found that after I started doing this, it was easier for me to pick out what was high yield even if I hadn't started any "official" practice questions because I could easily pick out what would be a good question, since I was tasked with writing them for my study group.
Writing your own questions is definitely a learned skill and, like any skill, takes practice. So please do not stop writing questions just because you're having trouble at first. You will get better as time goes on - trust me (aka don't judge my Quizlets from 1st and 2nd semester).
Whichever form of notetaking style(s) you decide on, make sure you're keeping it flexible, high yield, and providing yourself with retention tools to make best use of all the time you're creating notes and prevent yourself from getting lost to the potential passiveness of writing or typing alone.
Do you have any other suggestions for notetaking? Let me know in the contact section of my website - I love hearing all of you suggestions!
Thanks for joining me this week on the PASPAC Blog
I hope you enjoyed yourself and learned something along the way.
Safe Travels,
Becca
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