The Printer vs. Painter Reading

 

Take a picture of a beautiful scene with your mobile or digital camera. Now print this picture using a printer. Do you see how the printer prints the photo? If you cancel the print midway and remove the unfinished paper you will see that the photo is completely finished in the printed part but the rest of the page is blank.

The printer prints the photo dot by dot, line by line. The printer determines exactly the shade of the color to put in the infinitely small dot at the beginning of the line, then the next dot to it, and so on till a line is printed. Next, it will move one line below and repeat the process. The dots and lines are so close together that they appear as one continuous picture.

Now you try to paint the same photo on paper or canvas. Or if you are not artistically inclined then give it to your artistic friend. How will you or he/she proceed? Most likely the artist will first make a rough sketch on the entire paper, then paint in rough outline, fill in the rough colors, and then finally put in the highlights. The artist will be working on the entire paper in one go.

Note the difference between a machine printer and a human painter. The printer prints dot by dot, line by line while the human artist looks at the complete picture and paints accordingly.

How is it connected to learning? 

Although we are human, while reading conventionally, we read like a machine printer.

We start from the first letter, then the next letter, and so on till a line is complete. Then we go to the next line and so on. This may be the right approach if you are reading a mystery novel, but for other purposes, you can consider reading like how an artist paints a picture.

The alternative approach is to first gain the big picture of the entire chapter. Before reading the entire chapter word by word, first read only the main headings of the chapter like an artist drawing the rough outline on the entire paper or canvas to get an idea of where each thing is situated.

Then read the headings along with the sub-headings equivalent to painting the rough outlines in colors. Then read the headings, sub-headings, and any figures, diagrams, tables, and summary boxes like an artist further filling in more colors.

Once you have gained a good idea of the chapter through these three readings,  then start reading conventionally, word to word, line by line. Obviously, this method is more likely to work in a text which has lots of concepts and is organized in heading and sub-headings.

Different persons have different styles of reading and learning. Try and see if the 'artistic' method of reading works for you or not.

— ND

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DISCLAIMER: This article is intended only for fun purposes. The author does not promote or recommend any behavior illustrated here or claim it to be useful. Use the information herein is at your one's own risk. Before trying to emulate or follow anything the reader is well advised to take into account ethical, moral, legal, and other considerations. The author recommends that Medical Practice should be of the highest ethical and moral level keeping in mind the interest of the patient as foremost. The author recommends that Medical Education should be of the highest ethical and moral level keeping in mind the interest of the patient and students as foremost and according to NMC and other Board norms. 

Why read when I can see?

 

A common misconception is prevalent among many students and trainees that they can learn by just seeing something. In their day-to-day work/training since they are getting exposed to a variety of situations, they will learn passively by just seeing these things. One example is a surgical trainee assuming that if he/she will watch his professor operate on a patient, he/she will automatically understand and learn to do that operation. Or, if see your superior making a sales pitch you will understand and learn all the subtle psychological tricks/techniques he is employing. If you see your boss negotiating a deal you will pick up the fine points of negotiation skills.

  By the way, almost all of us are trainees no matter how old or experienced we are. There is always room for learning something new and improving ourselves.

These trainees and students forget that experience is not what happens to you; it is what you learn from what happens to you. With the same incident, two different persons may learn in different quantities or qualities of things. And one of the reasons for this is:

The Eyes Only Sees What the Mind Knows

It is only the most gifted among us who can see something and comprehend what exactly is happening. What we observe, understand, and learn is dependent on our background knowledge and information already in our brain. This may be clear from the following examples:

A junior resident doctor in AIIMS, New Delhi was doing an operation of inguinal hernia repair under the guidance of Dr. Dev (fictional name) who was a senior resident at that time. Suddenly the patient’s inferior epigastric artery got injured and started to bleed profusely. Dr. Dev quickly took an artery forceps and clamped the bleed point. Taking a surgical suture he quickly tied off the bleeding part thus controlling the bleeding. 

Once everything was under control, Dr. Dev asked the junior resident what had happened? The junior resident replied that there was some bleeding which is now controlled. 

Injury and bleeding from the inferior epigastric artery is a known complication of the inguinal hernia and if not controlled can cause serious complications to the patient. But since the junior resident had not read about it, he was not able to recognize it and understand the disaster that has been averted. So even thou he was actively involved in the operation yet because of a lack of background knowledge he did not learn to recognize and deal with the complication of that surgery.

Another time a young lady came with a large lump in the breast which needs to be taken out (excised) by operation. It is a simple task to make a cut (incision) in the skin over the lump, separate/dissect it from surrounding tissue, and stitch the wound. But the ugly scar remaining after the surgery is a problem for such young ladies. Dr. Dev decided to do a different approach (the Gillard Thomas approach) for this particular lady. In this approach instead of making a cut on the front of the breast, a cut/incision is made below at the junction of the breast with the chest wall and the surgeon goes behind the breast and removes the lump from behind. The scar of this cut is hidden below the breast.

Dr. Dev started the operation. The final year junior resident (JR) assisting him watched with interest as he had not seen this method of doing operation before. After the operation was over, the resident was impressed with the well-hidden scar with this approach.

A few days later, Dr. Dev saw the same junior resident operating on a patient with a breast lump while being assisted by another consultant. Dr. Dev’s interest was piqued when he saw the resident had made the same Gillard Thomas incision/cut instead of the usual skin cut. Dr. Dev. went to the adjoining operation theatre (OT) where he had a surgery scheduled. After he finished that operation, he came back to see what is happening in the JR’s OT. He found that the JR was still struggling to get to the lump. With quite some time and lots of struggle, he was able to get the lump out.

The problem arise that the junior resident had never read about that particular operation before and therefore he was not able to observe and note that Dr. Dev with the Gillard Thomas approach had first gone up and behind the breast and then removed the lump. So although he had seen and assisted in the operation, he was not able to learn the proper technique because of his lack of background knowledge. 

These are not isolated incidences. Time and again whether it is examining patients in wards or OPDs or assisting in the operation theater, students and resident doctors fail to observe and notice important points because they did not know what to look for as they have not studied about it before coming to the ward or operation theater. 

So before assisting in an operation, procedure, important deal, sales pitch, or even before your routine lectures and classes, study about it one day beforehand either by books or through internet videos and resources and make a note of what you should try to observe and learn from that lecture, class, negotiation, deal, operation, procedure or occurrence so that you actively learn and achieve your maximum potential.

Once again, remember first prepare your mind before seeing something new so as to turn your looking into observation and learning experience as:

The Eyes Only Sees What the Mind Knows

— ND

(Based on allegedly true incidents.)

© Author. All rights reserved. 

 Tit-Bits — Theodore Gaillard Thomas, misspelled ‘Gillard’, who described this incision was a gynecologist and not general surgeon.

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DISCLAIMER: This article is intended only for fun purposes. The author does not promote or recommend any behavior illustrated here or claim it to be useful. Use the information herein is at your one's own risk. Before trying to emulate or follow anything the reader is well advised to take into account ethical, moral, legal, and other considerations. The author recommends that Medical Practice should be of the highest ethical and moral level keeping in mind the interest of the patient as foremost. The author recommends that Medical Education should be of the highest ethical and moral level keeping in mind the interest of the patient as foremost and according to NMC and other Board norms.

The Question Paper Consult

 

Dr. Dev (fictional name) while an MBBS student was studying for his exam in the AIIMS, New Delhi, library. The exam was to be held the next day. During a short break, he noticed his friend looking at a bunch of papers then consulting his textbooks, again looking at the papers, then referring to the books, and so on. A curious Dev asked his friend what he was doing.

A surprised friend replied, ‘Are you not doing the same? I have collected the question papers from the previous year's exams. As there is very less time now, I am reading from the book only the answers to the questions asked in the past years.’

Depending on the college/university, the examiner/paper setter, local trends, etc. you may find that some questions are repeated, either directly or in some modified way, over the years in the exams.

An obvious way is to prepare and read the answers to these repeated questions.

Why does this repetition happen? This may be due to various factors. Superficially, you may think that the examiners are lazy and do not want to spend time and mental energy in making new and original questions.

This is usually not the case.

One obvious reason is that the examiners think that these questions or topics are important and the student should know the answer to them to pass his/her exams. Another reason can be that the examiners don’t want to disturb the system being followed over the years for the student’s sake.

Collecting the question papers from the previous years and studying their answers, especially as the last night revision is a method used by many smart but lazy students to get more marks with less study with variable success.

By analyzing the past question papers, you can get an idea of the structure of the question paper so as to better prepare on how to write your answers. You may observe that there are some chapters and topics from which more questions are asked and thus spend more time reading those topics. You may note that questions from some topics are rarely asked or of lesser marks which you may skip reading if there is a shortage of time.

But beware! This is far from an ideal situation. There have been instances when the questions paper structure and the questions asked had been changed without any warning to the students, causing a great shock to the students in the exam hall who had mainly prepared based on the previous year's question papers.

But the more important reason is that by just reading and preparing according to the past question papers, you will not have good complete knowledge of your subject. When you go out in the world, your incomplete knowledge can cause a problem for you and your patients or clients. You may pass in the exam but may fail in the bigger exam of real life.

So no doubt supplement your study with exam-oriented, focused revisions and preparation based on previous year's question papers, but study extensively also so as to have a broad complete knowledge of your subject.

NB: This is not a scientific article. Please verify the facts yourself before trying anything.

— ND

(Based on allegedly true incident.)

© Author. All rights reserved. 

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DISCLAIMER: This article is intended only for fun purposes. The author does not promote or recommend any behavior illustrated here or claim it to be useful. Use the information herein is at your one's own risk. Before trying to emulate or follow anything the reader is well advised to take into account ethical, moral, legal, and other considerations. The author recommends that Medical Practice should be of the highest ethical and moral level keeping in mind the interest of the patient as foremost. The author recommends that Medical Education should be of the highest ethical and moral level keeping in mind the interest of the patient as foremost and according to NMC and other Board norms. 

The AIIMS Topper Secret

Dr. Dev (fictional name) when he was a MBBS student at AIIMS, New Delhi, used to wonder how the toppers in his batch get 70 to 80% and sometimes even more marks in exam, while he and many other students struggle to get even 50 to 60% marks in the same exam.

Once during a clinical posting the students were waiting for the teacher to come and start the class. One of the topper of his batch said melancholically to another topper of their batch, ‘This time I will be getting poor marks. I am running late in my revision schedule and will finish revising the course only seven times this time.’

On hearing this Dr. Dev’s (who was just a student then) ears pricked up. He could not stop himself from asking the topper, ‘You will complete revising your course seven times before this exam! How many times that you normally revise before the exam?’

The topper replied, ‘Normally I revise the course material at least nine times before exam.’

Dr. Dev was stunned. The toppers of his class after through reading, were revising the books not once, not twice or even thrice but a good nine times before the exam. No wonder they were getting such good marks. He and many other students like him were reading just two to four times the course material before the exam. No wonder they were getting such poor marks.

Shortcuts, tips and tricks are for the lazy and time waster students. For the serious students, reading and re-reading nine to ten times is the secret of their high score.

On a lighter note, Dr. Dev calculated that the topper’s one reading plus nine revisions gets him 80 to 90% marks, which comes to (80 to 90) ÷ 10 = 8 to 9 marks per reading. Whereas, he and students like him who read 3 to 4 times, gets around 56% marks, which comes to 56 ÷ 4 = 14 marks, so who is more efficient?

— ND

(Based on allegedly true incident.)

© Author. All rights reserved. 

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DISCLAIMER: This article is intended only for fun purposes. The author does not promote or recommend any behavior illustrated here or claim it to be useful. Use the information herein is at your one's own risk. Before trying to emulate or follow anything the reader is well advised to take into account ethical, moral, legal, and other considerations. The author recommends that Medical Practice should be of the highest ethical and moral level keeping in mind the interest of the patient as foremost. 

DISCLAIMER: This article is intended only for fun purposes. The author does not promote or recommend any behavior illustrated here or claim it to be useful. Use the information herein is at your one's own risk. Before trying to emulate or follow anything the reader is well advised to take into account ethical, moral, legal, and other considerations. The author recommends that Medical Education should be of the highest ethical and moral level keeping in mind the interest of the patient as foremost and according to NMC and other Board norms.