You will need to memorize some items before you can rapidly assess or apply that knowledge to a particular situation; for example, you need to be able to recall the standard and lethal doses of a drug before deciding to administer it. Items you should memorize include, but are not limited to:

1. Names of common drugs.
2. Lethal and therapeutic doses.
3. Laboratory norms and values.
4. Growth and development norms.
5. Foods high or low in iron, protein, sodium, potassium, or carbohydrates.
6. Conversion formulas.
7. Anatomical names.
8. List of cranial nerves and their innervations.
9. Definitions of defense mechanisms.

To facilitate memorizing these and other essentials, here are some strategies:

1. Before you work on training your mind to remember, you must want to remember the material.
2. You cannot memorize something that you do not understand; therefore, know your material.
3. Visualize what you want to memorize; picture it; draw a picture.
4. Use the familiar to provide vivid mental pictures, to peg the unfamiliar.
1. When needing to remember a sequence, use your body to turn material into a picture. Draw a person, then list the first item to be memorized on top of the head, the next item on the forehead, and so on for nose, mouth, neck, chest, abdomen, thighs, knees, and feet.
2. Use what you already know to tie in with what you want to remember; make it memorable.
3. Use as pegs the unexpected, the exaggerated. Weird imagery is easiest to recall.
5. Use the blank-paper technique:
1. Place a large blank sheet on the wall.
2. After you have studied, draw on the blank paper what you remember.
3. When you have drawn all that you can recall, check with the resource and study what you did correctly and incorrectly.
4. Take another sheet and do it again. Purpose: to reinforce what you already know and work with what you want to remember.
6. Make up and use mnemonic devices to help you remember the important elements (see Appendix B ).
7. Repetitively explain to another person the material you want to memorize.
8. Saturate your environment with the material you want to memorize.
1. Purpose: to overcome the mind's tendency to ignore.
2. Tape facts, formulas, concepts on walls.
9. Above all, feel confident in your ability to memorize!