
Medical Mnemonist (from MedEd University)
Medical education innovation for premed, medical students, physician assistants, and nursing. Mnemonics, memory palaces, speed reading, study hacks, mind maps for the MCAT, USMLE, COMLEX, PANCE, NCLEX, and all of your healthcare board exam and classroom needs!
Latest episodes

Dec 30, 2021 • 30min
Durable Learning Strategies with the Learning Geek's Jake Gittleson (Ep. 11 Rebroadcast)
Jake Gittleson discusses how Mindset and Learning Ecosystems play a pivotal part in our learning success.
A Learning Geek joins us to talk nerdy about learning! Jake Gittleson joins us to discuss how Mindset and Learning Ecosystems play a pivotal part in our learning success. We also cover how mental representations and making material personally relevant has a great impact on the lasting nature of what we learn. As a Learning Strategist, Jake helps organizations and individuals implement the best learning techniques into their programs for maximum efficiency. We explore some concrete examples of how to utilize these strategies in our academic and medical studies.
Intro
1:45 About the Man and the Podcast
4:28 Durable Learning Strategies
8:06 Explore Personal Relevancy in the Materials & Writing Personal Goals
11:55 Format your own Self-Directed Learning
15: Stress Mindset and Spaced-Retrieval
20: Mental Representations and Utilizing Instructor Knowledge
22: Walk Down Memory Lane
Recommendations
A Mind For Numbers, Learning How to Learn (Dr. Barbara Oakley)
Peak (Dr. Anders Ericsson)
Brain Rules (John Medina)
Barry Zimmerman Home Page
Connect with Jake via Linkedin and check out his Blog Posts
Visit our Website - MedEd University
Email us at - support@meded.university
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Dec 23, 2021 • 32min
101. Sage Advice from Over a Decade in MedEd with Ben White MD
Chase DiMarco talks to Dr. Ben White, a Neuroradiologist with three books and a long-running website (BenWhite.com.) Dr. White shares practical advice for med students gathered from spending over a decade in the MedEd space.
[00:45] Getting to Know Dr. Ben White
[05:50] Comparing Medical Books of Today and From 10 Years Ago
[09:10] Online Resources for Medical Students
[12:00] Curriculum Replacement Platforms
[14:40] The Future of Med School is Online
[18:30] Why Soft Skills are Essential in Med School
[21:50] Extracurricular Activities and Med School Admissions
[26:16] Mental Health and Attitudes in Medicine
[28:40] Parting Thoughts
Full show notes
Visit our Website - MedEd University
Email us at - support@meded.university
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Dec 22, 2021 • 24min
Game Learning for Clerkships and Residents with Michael Cosimini MD (Ep. 73 Rebroadcast)
Dr. Michael Cosimini discusses gamification and games for clinical education. Dr. Cosimini is an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at the Keck School of Medicine at USC, and the author of Empiric, a card game for learning guidelines-based antibiotic selection.
[02:08] Challenges of Creating Games for a Clinical Setting
[02:56] Gamification Versus Serious Games
[07:22] How to Balance Between Entertainment and Education
[08:09] Tabletop Games Versus Video Games
[12:23] How Medical Students Can Apply Games to Their Learning
[13:49] How Empiric Works
[20:21] How to Find Out More About Michael & Empiric
Gamification Versus Serious Games
Many medical instructors already gamify their educational content, for example, by transforming a PowerPoint slide into a game of Jeopardy, giving out stickers for accomplishments, and having a leaderboard in class. An example of gamification in the literature is when surgical residents performing laparoscopic procedures were split into competing groups. The randomly selected students who trained in this gamified setting trained longer and performed better.
Dr. Cosimini does support gamification, but he more strongly promotes “serious games” which go beyond gamifying existing educational content, to creating a game for the purpose of education, rather than pure entertainment. For example, the game GridlockED, which resembles Clue, trains players to handle emergency room throughput. Michael’s card game, Empiric for learning antibiotic selection is also a serious game.
How to Balance Entertainment and Education in Games
To help find the appropriate balance between entertainment and education, Dr. Cosimini emphasizes the importance of testing the outcome of a game, to see what students have actually learnt. As a rule of thumb, be respectful of the player’s time. Do not have a game that is long, unless there is evidence that shows that this contributes to the learning process.
Tabletop Games Versus Video Games
Dr. Cosimini promotes tabletop games over digital or video games for medical education. He cites a study by Mary Flanagan of Tiltfactor, a game design company. The study compared the iPad and tabletop version of Pox: Save the People, a game about disease spread. With the tabletop version, people tended to interact and work together more, which is important for the social aspect of learning.
How Medical Students Can Apply Games to Their Education
Creating their own card games might be too involved, and too time-consuming for a medical student. Students can instead use off-the-shelf card games from resources such as East Midlands Emergency Medicine Educational Media, #EM3, which provides games for learning about pediatric EKGs, pediatric dermatology, and pediatric and adult orthopedics. For instructors, Michael recommends MedEd. He of course also recommends his own game Empiric, for learning about antibiotic selection, and his upcoming game about emergency medicine. These games are more helpful for clinical education i.e. for medical students on their clinical rotations, or for residents, and less helpful for first and second year medical students.
How Empiric Works
Empiric is based on the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) Red Book, 2018-2021. Dr. Cosimini includes visual cues — such as color coding — for facts such as the mechanism of delivery and the spectrum of activity, to enable students to memorize facts more quickly. It can be difficult to keep up with the changing facts around antibiotic resistance, and other antibiotic research. Currently, Dr. Cosimini does this by updating the printable card decks online, after the research is updated.
Check out Empiric’s Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and website. The website includes a list of medical and non-medical card games.
Sign up for a Free Coaching session with Chase DiMarco, sponsored by Prospective Doctor! You can also join the Med Mnemonist Mastermind FB Group today and learn more about study methods, memory techniques, and MORE! Do check out Read This Before Medical School. Like our FreeMedEd Facebook page and find our Medical Micro course, blog posts, and podcasts at FreeMedEd.org! Feel free to email any questions or comments.
Visit our Website - MedEd University
Email us at - support@meded.university
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Oct 28, 2021 • 37min
Optimizing Medical Student Memory & Skills Development Though Hacking Brain Physiology (Ep. 56 Rebroadcast)
Dr. Shae Datta is a neurologist and Director of Concussion and Neurocognition in New York. She also serves as the Chief Executive Officer at Residency Success. Dr. Datta has researched numerous subjects in the area of brain trauma, including the gut/brain link and study success through brain health.
Residency Success is a platform to help students with the application and interview processes to ensure success and build habits that will stay with you throughout your career.
Today’s episode will cover how to improve your brain health and preparatory habits to improve memory.
3:10 What is Residency Success and How Did it Come to Be?
4:10 Overview of Topics to be Covered
5:35 The Anatomy of the Brain in Relation to Memory
6:00 The Mind and Body Connection
6:35 The Detriments of Multi-tasking
7:47 Meditation to Improve Memory and Attention
11:40 Healthy Food Habits and Optimum Nutrition
14:40 Eating the Rainbow
16:45 Caffeine Consumption: The Benefits and Knowing When to Stop
19:45 Exercise and Neuroplasticity
23:10 The Role of Light Exposure in Chemical Balancing
24:15 Memory Consolidation and Sleep
25:00 Sleep Hygiene
26:30 Creating Memories: The Three Stages of Memory Formation
27:40 The Use of Memory Evoking Scent for Consolidation
30:35 Eliminating ‘Junk Light’
32:36 How Residency Success Can Benefit You
32:30 Scheduling Tips
Resources
Residency Success can be found here: Residency Success
You can also contact Dr. Datta by email here: residencysucess2000@gmail.com or by calling: (917) 524-8067
Apps for meditation: 10% Happier, Headspace
Don’t forget to sign up for our online education summit at: FreeMedEd.org/omes Tickets are free!
Join the Medical Mnemonist Master Mind Facebook group and find our Blog posts, Podcasts, and other Resources at FreeMedEd.org! Feel free to Email any Questions or Comments.
Visit our Website - MedEd University
Email us at - support@meded.university
Follow us on our Social media accounts -
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MedEdUniversity/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/MedEduniversity
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LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/mededuniversity
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/mededuniversity
YouTube: http://youtube.com/mededuniversity

Oct 21, 2021 • 30min
What’s Your Prognosis? Gamified Diagnosis with Medical Joyworks’ Dr. Nayana Somaratna (Ep. 59 Rebroadcast)
Dr. Nayana Somaratna is CEO and Co-Founder of Medical Joyworks and creator of the Prognosis app series and the Clinical Sense app. As well as holding a medical degree, Dr. Somaratna also holds an IT degree and just this year completed a law degree. Today’s episode sees him discuss his background and inspiration for his company as well as how to apply the learning from his app series.
02:17 The Creation of Medical Joyworks
04:15 The Experience of Medical School in Sri Lanka
06:15 How and Why Prognosis was Conceived
09:15 Obtaining Clinical Insight via Prognosis
11:11 Basing Algorithms and Processes on Clinical Workflow
13:01 The Differences Between Prognosis and Clinical Sense
14:22 Which App to Use for Exam Preparation and Why
15:32 Who is the Audience: Students Practitioners
16:37 Available Research into Gamification for Medical Study
19:00 Expanding Online Curriculums and Telemedicine Post Covid-19
21:34 The Future of Joyworks
23:50 What Would You Change if You Could Go Back in Time?
26:54 Medicine is an Odyssey
ResourcesMedical Joyworks Clinical Sense Prognosis
Join the Medical Mnemonist Master Mind Facebook group and find our Blog posts, Podcasts, and other Resources at FreeMedEd.org! Feel free to Email any Questions or Comments.
Visit our Website - MedEd University
Email us at - support@meded.university
Follow us on our Social media accounts -
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Sep 16, 2021 • 27min
Game Thinking in Medicine with Professor Karl Kapp (Ep. 62 Rebroadcast)
Karl Kapp is a Professor at Bloomberg University and author of several books about gamification and game thinking. Karl received a Doctorate of Education in the Instructional Design program at the University of Pittsburgh. He is also a frequent speaker and business consultant, helping organizations to implement learning strategies through technology.
Today’s episode continues conversations about gaming in medical education and how to use creative and interactive modalities to benefit education.
0:52 What Gamification Means to Karl
3:19 The Main Approaches to Gamification Design: Structural and Content
4:50 Learning Objections: Retaining Information by Creating Engaging Challenges
5:30 Gamification as a Design Affordance
7:00 Confidence Builds Competence: Implementing Gamification Before Residency
9:50 Overcoming the Stigma of Fun Learning Approaches
11:35 Creating Desirable Difficulty
12:20 How Society Impacts Gamification
14:29 Leveraging Analog Formats to Overcome Funding Restrictions
17:40 The Importance of Collaboration for Creativity
19:00 The Scalability of Gamification for Other Disciplines
20:04 Resources for Creating Your Own Learning Game
23:00 The Retention Benefits of Creating Your Own Game
24:04 Using Game Creation as a Self-Assessment Tool.
Resources
Information about Karl Kapp can be found here:
http://karlkapp.com
https://twitter.com/kkapp
https://www.linkedin.com/in/karlkapp
Books
The Theory of Fun for Game Design by Raph Koster
Websites
Quizlet
Print and Play
The Game Crafter
Gamestructor
Construct
The Game Agency
Enspire
Join the Medical Mnemonist Master Mind Facebook group and find our Blog posts, Podcasts, and other Resources at FreeMedEd.org! Feel free to Email any Questions or Comments.
Visit our Website - MedEd University
Email us at - support@meded.university
Follow us on our Social media accounts -
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MedEdUniversity/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/MedEduniversity
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Mededuniversity
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/mededuniversity
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/mededuniversity
YouTube: http://youtube.com/mededuniversity

Sep 9, 2021 • 43min
Increasing Motivation, Test-taking Skills & Board Prep Success (Ep. 53 Rebroadcast)
Discover test-taking tips, test-prep strategies, how to increase motivation, and more!
Chase DiMarco finishes up this 7-part mini-series with test-taking tips, test-prep strategies, how to increase motivation, and much more. We all struggle with these topics at some point in our academic careers. However, knowing how to notice when things are going astray and how to correct your actions is a skill we were often never taught. Keep motivated, organized, and keep self-assessing and you WILL reach your goals!
Key Episode Points!
0:41 Study Buddies & How to Select the Right One for You
5:18 Making Learning more Durable and Finding Personal Relevance
14:50 Developing Practical Knowledge & Improving Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation for Medical Students
22:08 Failing Upwards: How a Supportive Environment Encourages Positive Mistakes
Proper exam materials and techniques
27:34 Test-prep Skills, Materials, Organization, & Pitfalls
32:18 Using Analysis of Board Exams to Qualify Our Testing Strategies
Visit our Website - MedEd University
Email us at - support@meded.university
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Sep 2, 2021 • 32min
Video Game Mechanics for Fostering Medical Learning with Dr. Eric Gantwerker - Level Ex (Ep. 54 Rebroadcast)
Dr. Eric Gantwerker is the medical director of Level Ex games which include CardioEx, PulmEx, AirwayEx, and GastroEx. Gaming is a great way to inspire attention and active learning in medicine but also one we rarely use in education. Today’s episode will cover some of the psychology and research behind game design in medical learning.
Intro
2:55 Gaming as an Active Learning Strategy for Medical Students
11:39 Why Students (and Teachers) Should Consider Adding Gamified Curriculum in Medicine
15:48 Game Design for Education & for FUN!
22:00 Games and Apps for Medical Student Education
Resources
Chase DiMarco at the Florida Mensa Regional Gathering Twine Polycraft EcoMUVE Fold.it Microbe Invader Habatica Prognosis The Body VR Touch Surgery Plague Inc, Bio Inc Unity
Visit our Website - MedEd University
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Aug 30, 2021 • 18min
100. How Physicians are Changing the Medical Education Landscape
Chase DiMarco shares his presentation about FindARotation at InnovatorMD’s World Congress 2021. This annual convention is the largest conference where physicians and entrepreneurs connect and offer their ideas on how to change healthcare for the better. Chase talks about why he built FindARotation and how it will change medical education for both students and preceptors.
[01:40] Why Chase started FindARotation
[04:06] FindARotation’s Mission
[05:35] How FindARotation benefits students and preceptors
[08:21] Remote Rotations during the COVID-19 Pandemic
[09:53] How to Use FindARotation
[11:32] Q&A Portion
Full show notes
Visit our Website - MedEd University
Email us at - support@meded.university
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Aug 5, 2021 • 30min
99 “Jeopardy Tournament of Champions” Memory Tricks with Sam Kavanaugh
Chase DiMarco talks to Sam Kavanaugh, winner of the 29th Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions. They discuss memory techniques, the similarities between preparing for Jeopardy! and studying medicine, and effective flashcard learning strategies.
[01:28] Getting to Know Sam Kavanaugh
[04:40] Bulking up for Jeopardy!
[08:20] Weaving Together Common Threads in Memory Building
[13:50] Developing Memory Techniques
[17:18] Adding Environmental Stimulus and Difficulty to Study Routines
[18:20] How to Learn Faster and Retain More
[20:58] Top Tips for Studying and Memory
[25:00] Effective Flashcard Learning Strategies
Full show notes
Visit our Website - MedEd University
Email us at - support@meded.university
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