Hi everyone, this is Tom and in this video I want to talk to you about a technique I've been using for many years to really help me study and remember information that I'm reading. And this technique is called read and recall. I've used a different name for it in the past called effortful reading. But uh when I did a kind of survey at some of my courses, the the one that people really liked for this name was read and recall. So we're sticking with that. So what is read and recall? Well, it's an alternative uh method for learning information. This is really the thing that you should be doing when you take your textbooks to the library. When you when you've got your study resources and you're taking them to to study, this is how you should absorb the content and remember it. It's an alternative to either casual reading, meaning you have your book and you're just sat on the sofa casually reading through it. You're in the bath. It's at nighttime. Whatever it is, you're just casually reading, hoping that the information will somehow absorb into your brain. This is the alternative. What we're trying to do with read and roll call is get it to stick to stick. I don't know if you found this when you casually read through something, then an hour or two later you think back, what was those details that I I was reading through and you just can't remember it. or you're going to like an anatomy lecture or a class or a small group session, you've read through the content, then when you're in the actual session, you can't remember anything that you read through, which can be very frustrating. So, reading recall is an alternative to this casual reading that doesn't work. It's also an alternative to note takingaking. So, people uh have this thing where they take a textbook and then they have their own they've got a textbook on one side and they've got their notepad on the other side and they're basically copying out the information from the textbook to the notepad. So, it's like a passive process of transferring information and they're creating their set of notes. What's the point of this set of notes? Well, the set of notes is then just what you copied it from. So all you've done is recreate a new resource and at some point you're going to have to learn from that new resource. But people end up with this crazy thing where they take a textbook, they make their set of notes, then they make a set of notes on their set of notes, then they make a set of notes on that set of notes. So they have this kind of like inception uh process of more and more note takingaking. We're not making notes with this system. We're trying to learn the information straight from the textbook. So here we are learning rather than creating. So learn don't create. When you sit down to study stuff, try to learn it. Don't try to create a new resource. When it comes to the exams, when you're sat in your exams or you're seeing patients or you're trying to apply that information, you all you have is what you've learned. You don't have your set of notes ready for you. Then the third thing it replaces is this process of kind of highlighting or putting little stickers on or kind of taking the textbook, you going through with a highlighter to highlight keywords. What you're not trying to, this is not for your future self to learn. What we're trying to do here is learn now. So when you go through a textbook and you're highlighting key words, what you're doing there is just pointing out stuff to your future self so that when you go through that textbook again, you kind of straight to the highlighted words. And so what what you're doing is kind of assuming that your future self is going to be better at learning stuff than you are. What you're trying to do with read and recall is learn right this moment. Not highlight something for future Tom or future Sally or whoever it is to learn. You're trying to actually learn it right now. Present Tom is trying to learn it so that it's stuck in the brain. So this is the kind of what read and recall is replacing. So let's go through the aims of read and recall. So the aims are number one to learn it now. You want to learn the information right now. You don't want future Tom or future whoever it is to learn the information. present Tom needs to learn this information right this moment in the library so that when I sit the exams I'll have that retained second thing is to retain the information long-term so if you just passively read something for the next 5 minutes you might retain that information in your shortterm memory but what read and recall aims to do is transfer it to your long-term memory so you retain it over the long term instead of just a real short-term effect that then fizzles out and a week later you can't remember what you read. The third aim is to understand the information. So really to gain a a a good understanding and a picture of it rather than just taking very specific key points or drilling facts like you might do with a multiple choice question question bank where you're just or with like an Anki set of flash cards. So if you're just using Anki and you're just drilling these key facts, you don't understand the bigger picture. With read and recall, you're trying to understand how everything fits together. And the fourth thing is to get the key words to stick. So you're learning the vocabulary. You want to retain that v vocabulary long term so you can use it in the future. So let's move on to the next point which is why it works. So this is the key principles behind or the kind of psychological theory or the evidence behind why it works. And I've been using read and recall since my GCSEs long before I did any sort of scientific research long before I did my psychology degree or my medical education degree. And I didn't know why it worked at the time. I just knew intuitively that it was working. And everybody that I've kind of in uh given this technique to has found it very beneficial and found that it's worked. But actually there's some key principles that have been proven in the scientific literature and the psychological research that that show why it works. Number one is a process called active retrieval or the testing effect. So when you get your brain to retrieve information, that's how you put that information into your long-term memory. So people think that creating memories is is done through absorbing the information but actually creating memories is done through retrieving the information. Um if you're just passively absorbing the information, it doesn't uh it doesn't actually sink in. It's only when you retrieve the information that um it sort of grows and develops and the the um the memory sticks with you. So active retrieval is essential. Number two is that you're practicing. So you're practicing getting that information out of your brain. when you're in the exam or you're in a clinical scenario and you need to retrieve that information from your memory, the more times you've retrieved it, the more you've practice that process of retrieving it, the easier it's going to be. And the third one is a principle called desirable difficulty. What you'll find when you do this um read and recall is that it takes some effort and the more strain you put on your brain, the more difficulty you put on your brain when you're learning something, the more that thing will stick. So you want your brain to be straining a bit for it to recall that information in your memory. If you're just passively casually reading, your brain doesn't really think and it's important enough to store it. But if you're straining your brain to understand the information, it thinks, let me store this properly. Similar to lifting weights, if you're lifting very very light weights, your your body won't adapt and you won't grow muscles or strength. If you're lifting very heavy weights and straining, that stresses your body enough for it to adapt and and improve. So these are the principles of why it works. Next, let's go through the process which in order to do that, we need a piece of paper or blank blank pad of paper and we need your learning material. So, for this example, I'm going to be going through um I'm going to be going through some information on hemocromattosis, assuming that we're going to be learning about hemocchromattosis for this example, and we're learning it from the zero to finals medicine book. Okay. So, here we've got our textbook and we've got our um notepad and we got some colorful pens just for fun. So we're going to do a topic on hemocromattosis. So the first thing I'm going to do before I do anything else, before I even open the textbook is I'm going to take hemocromattosis and I'm going to write down the everything that I can remember about hemocromattosis. So remember it's a genetic condition. I think it's autotosomal recessive and I know it's a problem with iron being too high and I think the test for it is ferotin and there's something about iron studies but I can't remember what what actually happens with the iron studies. I think it affects the liver. So it causes cerosis. See and uh treatment is I'm guessing to remove iron. So this would be ke chelation. No it's not keelation. It would be uh venus section. Okay. So, we could say what what else genetic test, but I can't remember what is the gene. I'm not sure. So, here you can see just scribbling down the key things that I can remember. Probably the things that I think would come up in a uh in a in an MCQ test. You'll notice this is not me creating notes. This is me just scribbling down ideas. Okay. So, first step, note down everything you can remember from memory before you even start. Next step is to open the book and cover up the topic with the piece of paper so you can't see it. And then what you're going to do is take the piece of paper and in order to read it, you have to bring the piece of paper down. So we're going to read the intro. Hemocchromattosis is autotosomal recessive. Yeah, I got that. Resulting in iron overload. So we got that. There is excessive total body iron and iron deposition in tissues is an iron storage disorder. Okay, cool. Iron storage disorder. So we got autotosomal recessive. Then you bring the next thing down, the human hemocromattosis protein or HF gene which is important in regulating iron metabolism located on chromosome 6. Okay. So we we didn't quite manage to get what the gene was for hemocromattosis. So it was the human Or was it hemocchromattosis protein protein? So that's HF gene. So we need to remember the HF gene. Okay, let me cover that up and just remember it for myself. I need to remember HF gene. human hemocromattosis protein gene and that was on chromosome 6. So I want to remember HF and chromosome 6. Okay, majority of cases are C282 Y mutations. So C282Y mutations. Okay, I need to remember that in this gene mutations are required in both copies of the gene. So it needs to be homozygous because it's automal recessive. Okay. So I'll come back to this in a moment. So the presentation at this point we've got a title of presentation. So what I'm going to do is say okay presentation. So, iron overload. I'm going to think we've got kind of liver liver disease, joint pain because I think the iron stores in the joint. Remember something about hormone irregularities. So, am aora in women and uh erectile dysfunction in men. Uh what else can I remember? Something about bronze skin. Maybe the iron goes into the skin. Okay. So, usually presents after age 40 when the iron overload becomes symptomatic. Later in females due to menration. Okay. Later in females, menration need to remember that. So chronic tiredness, joint pain, pigmentation, testicular atrophy, atrophy need to remember testicular atrophy, erectile dysfunction, amen, cognitive symptoms. So yeah, cognitive symptoms. Cool. and hippatomegaly. So big liver. Okay, cool. Now on to the next bit. So how do we make a diagnosis? So I'm testing myself now on what I can remember about diagnosis. So for diagnosis we need uh iron levels. So ferotin and we talked about iron studies something to do with transferin saturation but I can't remember if the transferin saturation is high or low. I'm going to guess high in hemocromattosis. So what are the raises causes of a raised feritin? Ah, here we go. Serum feritin is the initial investigation. The causes of a raised feritin are so raised feritin causes. We've got hemocchromattosis. Then we've got uh I think it's an acute phase reactant. So it can go up in like infection, liver disease and it can go up in like cancers. I'm going to guess iron supplements will put the iron level up. Okay. Infections alcohol. Okay. So we missed out alcohol. So I need to remember alcohol as one of the causes of a race biotin, fatty liver disease, I got liver disease and hepatitis C and cancer. Okay, cool. So transference saturation helps distinguish between high feritin caused by iron overload, the transfer saturation is high and other causes where the transfer saturation is normal. Okay, transfer saturation is high in hemocchromattosis. So that was correct. And other causes will be normal like liver disease, genetic testing for the HF gene and a liver biopsy with pearl stain. Okay, let me remember that one. Liver biopsy. Pearl stain. Pearl. P E R L. Okay. So, imagine the pearls of iron in the liver. That's how I'm going to remember it. An MRI scan can can be good for the liver instead of having to do a biopsy. Complications. Um, okay. Let me go through the complications and then I would do that process where I write down the complications and we'll go through it that way. and management venus section like we said monitoring the feritin and monitoring complications. Okay. So now we finish going through hemocromattosis at this stage we close the book up and we go through everything we can remember just like we did at the start. So there was a key a few key things hemocromattosis so it's the HF gene human hemocromattosis protein chromosome six and uh the presentation we forgot testicular atrophy um what were the other key things mood changes is okay late it came later in women because of menration. What else did we did we remember from there? Okay. So we also got investigations. So feritin and high transfer and saturation and the HF gene MRI pearl stain. Okay, let me just have a very quick note through my look through my scribbles. Oh yeah, there was the C282 Y mutation. Got to remember that one. Um an amenorhea, erectile dysfunction, testicular atrophy, cognitive symptoms. Okay. Pulse staining. That's it. Oh, causes of a raised feritin. Let's just go through that again. ferotin, alcohol, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, cancer, infection, um, hepatitis C, and of course, hemocromattosis. Cool. What else have we got? Genetic. So, that pretty much covers everything. And that's hemocchromattosis done. We've been through all the content we needed for hemocchromattosis in the book. And we've been through this. So the process is write down what you can remember before you even start. Then go through one thing at a time noting down everything you can remember. Then at the end scribble down everything you can remember. And now I'm left with these pieces of paper which have got rough scribbles on them. Importantly, these are not notes. I'm throwing these away. These are these are going in the bin or in the recycling. And the next time I come to study hemocromattosis, I'm going to go directly to the book all over again and start the same process again. Okay. So, now we've been through the process of how you do it. That's how you actually sit down and do a read and recall session. There's some final notes and some final things that I want to to discuss. Firstly, repetition is key. You've probably come across the forgetting curve. If not, it's in some of my other videos. But essentially whatever technique you use very quickly after you use that technique to learn something you will start to forget the information. The only way to retain the information long term is to repeatedly learn that information. So if we did hemocchromattosis today we need to do it again in say a week or two weeks and then again in say a month and by spacing out repetitions and covering it again and again again that's how we get it to stick long term. The second thing is don't get stuck. You might be thinking after you've seen that, gosh, this is a very um intensive process and it takes a long time. Actually, it should be quite quick. What you're trying to do is keep going and pushing through until you get to the end. Don't get stuck on every tiny detail. What I would say is keep going. If you come across something that doesn't immediately make sense and you can't start drilling it in, just keep pushing through. The important thing is you will repeat it. So if you're stuck on a top on a section and you just can't get that section to stick in your memory, don't stay there for a long time. Just move on. And each repetition, what you got to do is pick out the key points you want to learn for that repetition. So with each repetition, pick the key points that you want to learn on that repetition, knowing that you're going to come back to it again and again. So you don't have to learn 100% of everything in each study session. You just want to learn the key points for that study session and get an overview of everything and an overall understanding of that particular topic with some key facts that you want to remember. Then you're going to come back to it the next time. Those key facts from the previous time will probably be quite um you know have stayed quite well with you. And so you can pick out some other key facts that you need to uh really get uh stuck into. Then the the third repetition you pick out some new key facts and each time you're building layer upon layer of understanding of that topic. So repetition is key. Each repetition stick to some key facts that you really drill into your memory and over time you'll build up a really solid understanding of the whole topic. So hopefully that video was helpful. Try out this read and recall method. It's far superior in my opinion to casual reading, note takingaking, highlighting, the other techniques that people tend to use. Make sure you're recording your sessions so you can space out those repetitions over time. And make sure you're also incorporating uh some testing in your learning. So, I hope that was useful and I'll see you in the next video, which will hopefully be tomorrow.