@braviboron Are these personality disorder clinical features cards meant to replace the pre-existing ones with mnemonics (e.g. NID:1737254465943) or to be studied alongside them?
@mohsenz22 these are supplementary. Mnemonic cards should always be supported by normal cards in my opinion.
@braviboron While I do generally agree with the sentiment that mnemonic cards alone are insufficient but in some cases where there are several items/facts to recall in one go, I believe that just having the mnemonic card is more beneficial for recall in the long run. In this card for example, there are basically 5 facts you have to recall whenever you see the card: reassurance, fear of abandonment, lack of initiative, difficult decision making, and efforts to gain support. Generally, these facts would be easy to remember the first few times you see the card but then the interval will gradually increase to months. When the card comes up for review again, you may not remember all 5 of the items - you’ll miss one or two. Obviously, that’s the whole point of spaced repetition but in cases like this, I believe not remembering all 5 at once doesn’t necessarily reflect a gap in your knowledge of the subject. Even if you can’t list all 5, you could still recognize the disorder in a patient or in an exam question and, if you need to recall the whole list of symptoms, then you could always have your trustworthy mnemonic (in this case, RELIANCE 5) to help you list them all. Mnemonics may have the same pitfall of not being able to list all of them but at least you have something to start with and refresh you memory. These are, of course, just my opinions and I’d love to hear what you think of the subject.
@mohsenz22 certainly a fair point. @Stapedius what are your thoughts on such cards. To me I would prefer to have a card where I had to list some of the features, and the inverse where I had to recognise the condition. I don’t love doing mnemonic cards for low yield diseases personally, although @mohsenz22 makes some convincing arguments. This card can be cleaned up a little re minimum info principle too.
@braviboron Personally, I think mnemonic cards can be the ones used to list some of the features and an inverse can question the diagnosis. I understand what you mean about not wanting mnemonic cards for low yield concepts but whether low or high yield, I am of the opinion that it would more convenient to have a mnemonic for a list rather than memorize it by brute force. Maybe high yield concepts can have the mnemonic on the front while low yield on the back? By the way, your personality disorder cards were outstanding, I enjoyed reviewing them.
@mohsenz22 I’ll add to the meeting discussion for next meeting
Interesting discussion @braviboron @mohsenz22 I think there is probably a middle ground we need to find somewhere as I personally feel it’s suboptimal to end up learning a million mnemonics. There is a real risk in that scenario of just learning mnemonics rather than actually understanding the concept. I do agree though this card needs work to meet the MIP and should be summarised to the key distinguishing point in a few words if possible.