Some Basic Example Cards
“Have a very great care, then, of your medical student, and how you guide him at starting. Now especially is the time for good advice, if you have any to give. Take them now into the wards of the hospital at once; fit or unfit, as people reckon fitness, thither take them…. and there let them remain.”
– Peter Mere Latham –
Phew! We have made it through the Card System, and hopefully revolutionised our approach to study along the way. Before long, you too may admit that before the Card System, study was a haphazard and scatter-brained affair, as was thinking. From now on, it is going to be systematic, methodical and thorough.
So let us begin putting what we have learnt into practice.Write cards on the following topics, using your ‘reference cards’ to direct you. You may have to go to the library and look at a textbook, but it shouldn’t take you long. When finished, flick through the examples below and check how you compared…
1. Down Syndrome
2. Wilson’s Disease
3. Mumps
4. Hepatic Cirrhosis
The best resource for studying (and comparing your cases against) is the monograph, found in journals or thick textbooks. Though ideal, it would be hard to cover everything this way, so a reference text is a good second best. Don’t just sell yourself short with whatever a lecturer chooses to tell you!
If you don’t know anything about the conditions associated with Down’s, then you have some more cards to write.
This is the way to study!
Fill the gaps in your knowledge as you come across them.
Medicine is learned by the bedside and not in the classroom. Let not your conceptions of the manifestations of disease come from words heard in the lecture room or read from the book.