High-yield MBBS concepts, each with a plain-English explanation, the key points, a memory trick, and an image + video lecture you can open right here. Great for quick revision β and it works offline, so you can study without burning data or AI credits.
What it is: A network of nerves (roots C5βT1) that supplies the upper limb.
π§ Memory trick: Randy Travis Drinks Cold Beer β Roots, Trunks, Divisions, Cords, Branches.
What it is: A triangular space in the upper thigh containing major neurovascular structures.
π§ Memory trick: NAVEL (lateral β medial): Nerve, Artery, Vein, Empty space, Lymphatics.
What it is: An oblique passage in the lower abdominal wall transmitting the spermatic cord (male) or round ligament (female).
What it is: An anastomotic ring of arteries at the base of the brain that safeguards its blood supply.
What it is: Twelve paired nerves that arise directly from the brain and brainstem.
π§ Memory trick: Some Say Marry Money But My Brother Says Big Brains Matter Most (S = sensory, M = motor, B = both).
What it is: The arteries that supply oxygenated blood to the heart muscle itself.
What it is: The dome-shaped main muscle of respiration separating the thorax from the abdomen.
π§ Memory trick: C3-4-5 keep the diaphragm alive; openings: 'I ate (8) ten eggs at twelve' β IVC T8, oEsophagus T10, Aorta T12.
What it is: The hindbrain structure that coordinates movement, posture and balance.
π§ Memory trick: Cerebellar signs = DANISH: Dysdiadochokinesia, Ataxia, Nystagmus, Intention tremor, Slurred speech, Hypotonia.
What it is: The three primary embryonic tissue layers from which every organ develops.
π§ Memory trick: Ecto = outer (skin + nervous system); Meso = middle (muscle, bone, blood, kidney); Endo = inner (gut lining & glands).
What it is: The narrow passage at the wrist through which the median nerve and flexor tendons run.
What it is: The serous membrane lining the abdominal cavity and covering its organs.
π§ Memory trick: Retroperitoneal organs = SAD PUCKER (Suprarenal, Aorta/IVC, Duodenum, Pancreas, Ureters, Colon, Kidneys, oEsophagus, Rectum).
What it is: The skin area (dermatome) and muscle group (myotome) supplied by a single spinal nerve root.
π§ Memory trick: T4 at the nipple, T10 at the umbilicus - handy checkpoints.
What it is: The motor and sensory loss patterns of the major upper-limb nerves.
π§ Memory trick: Radial = wrist drop, Ulnar = claw, Median = can't oppose the thumb.
What it is: Six numbered embryonic arches of the head and neck; the fifth is rudimentary or absent, so the clinically important arches are 1, 2, 3, 4 and 6, each with its own nerve, cartilage, artery and muscles.
π§ Memory trick: Pouches 1-2-3-4: ear, tonsil, thymus with inferior parathyroid, superior parathyroid. The 3rd pouch travels furthest, so its parathyroids end up lowest.
What it is: Sternocleidomastoid divides each side of the neck into an anterior and a posterior triangle, each further subdivided.
π§ Memory trick: Anterior triangle holds the airway and the carotid; posterior triangle holds the accessory nerve and the trunks of the brachial plexus.
What it is: The largest synovial joint in the body, a modified hinge between femur, tibia and patella allowing flexion, extension and slight rotation.
π§ Memory trick: The unhappy triad β a lateral blow can tear the anterior cruciate ligament, the tibial collateral ligament and the medial meniscus together.
What it is: A ball-and-socket synovial joint between the head of the femur and the acetabulum, built for stability and weight-bearing.
π§ Memory trick: Stability over mobility β a deep socket, a labrum and three capsular ligaments trade movement range for the strength to carry your weight.
What it is: A muscular organ of taste, speech and swallowing, split by a V-shaped groove into an oral and a pharyngeal part with different nerve supplies.
π§ Memory trick: Taste of the front = facial (chorda tympani); touch of the front = trigeminal (lingual); the back = glossopharyngeal for both.
What it is: A paired dural venous sinus beside the body of the sphenoid, remarkable for the nerves and the artery that run through and beside it.
π§ Memory trick: Inside the sinus swim the carotid and the abducens; pinned to the lateral wall are III, IV, V1 and V2.
What it is: The terminal part of the gut, whose upper and lower halves differ in origin, lining, blood supply, nerve supply and drainage, divided by the pectinate line.
π§ Memory trick: Everything changes at the pectinate line β lining, pain, artery, vein and lymph all switch from visceral-portal above to somatic-systemic below.
What it is: The largest salivary gland, wrapped around the ramus of the mandible and famous for the structures that pass through it.
π§ Memory trick: Superficial to deep through the gland: facial Nerve, retromandibular Vein, external carotid Artery β the nerve is most superficial and most at risk.
What it is: An endocrine gland in the front of the neck, made of two lobes joined by an isthmus, that wraps around the upper trachea and secretes thyroid hormones.
π§ Memory trick: Two nerves, two poles: the external laryngeal nerve hides at the upper pole with the superior thyroid artery, and the recurrent laryngeal nerve at the lower pole with the inferior thyroid artery.
What it is: A muscular hollow organ in the pelvis that stores urine, lined by transitional epithelium and emptied by the detrusor muscle under nervous control.
π§ Memory trick: Point-and-shoot nerves: Parasympathetic Pees (contracts the detrusor to empty), Sympathetic Stores (relaxes it to fill).
What it is: The gap between two adjacent ribs, filled by three layers of intercostal muscle and carrying the intercostal nerve and vessels in a groove under the upper rib.
π§ Memory trick: VAN from the top down: Vein, Artery, Nerve tucked in the costal groove; enter a space just above the lower rib to miss them.
What it is: The heart chamber that receives deoxygenated blood from the body through the venae cavae and the coronary sinus and passes it to the right ventricle.
π§ Memory trick: Crista terminalis is the border: smooth venous inflow behind it, rough pectinate muscle in front, with the sinuatrial node sitting at its top.
What it is: The body's largest lymph vessel, which drains lymph from most of the body into the bloodstream at the root of the neck on the left side.
π§ Memory trick: Everything but the right upper quarter: the thoracic duct drains three quadrants, crosses the midline at about the fifth thoracic vertebra, and empties into the left venous angle.
What it is: The larger of the two lungs, made of three lobes divided by two fissures, with a hilum on its inner surface where the airways and vessels enter.
π§ Memory trick: Right is bigger but shorter: three lobes, two fissures, and a wide vertical bronchus that catches inhaled objects.
What it is: A ball-and-socket synovial joint between the head of the humerus and the shallow glenoid cavity of the scapula, built for a huge range of movement.
π§ Memory trick: Mobility over stability: a shallow socket held by the SITS rotator cuff, weakest below, so it dislocates anteroinferiorly and endangers the axillary nerve.
What it is: A set of connected fluid-filled cavities inside the brain that make and hold cerebrospinal fluid, comprising two lateral ventricles, a third and a fourth ventricle.
π§ Memory trick: Two, then one, then one: lateral ventricles to the third (via Monro), third to the fourth (via the aqueduct), then out through Luschka and Magendie.
What it is: The organ of voice in the neck, a framework of cartilages that guards the airway during swallowing and produces sound by vibrating the vocal folds.
π§ Memory trick: One opener, many closers: the posterior cricoarytenoid alone abducts the cords, and the recurrent laryngeal nerve runs every intrinsic muscle except cricothyroid.
What it is: A compact band of white matter deep in the brain through which most of the nerve fibres travelling to and from the cortex pass.
π§ Memory trick: A funnel for the whole cortex: motor fibres at the genu and posterior limb, sensory behind them, so one small lesion can weaken a whole side.
What it is: The largest part of the brain, divided into two hemispheres and four lobes, whose surface holds the areas for movement, sensation, vision, hearing and language.
π§ Memory trick: Front moves, back feels, occiput sees, temporal hears; Broca speaks (front) and Wernicke understands (temporal), usually on the left.
What it is: A funnel of fascia that carries the main vessels from the abdomen into the thigh, with a small medial space that is the site of a femoral hernia.
π§ Memory trick: Lateral to medial, NAVEL: Nerve (outside the sheath), Artery, Vein, Empty canal, Lymphatics; the empty femoral canal is where a femoral hernia slips through.
What it is: The diamond-shaped hollow behind the knee, a crossroads for the main nerves and vessels passing between the thigh and the leg.
π§ Memory trick: Deep to superficial, the artery hides: popliteal Artery (deepest), Vein, then tibial Nerve on top, with the common fibular nerve hugging the upper lateral edge.
What it is: The curved arrangements of the foot bones that spread body weight, absorb shock and give the spring needed for standing and walking.
π§ Memory trick: Bones, ligaments and muscles hold the spring: the medial longitudinal arch is highest, the spring ligament props the talus, and its failure flattens the foot.
What it is: A pair of lymphoid masses in the side walls of the throat that help defend against inhaled and swallowed germs, forming part of a protective ring.
π§ Memory trick: A guard in Waldeyer's ring: crypts trap germs, the facial artery feeds it, and the glossopharyngeal nerve refers its pain to the ear.
What it is: A firm but flexible connective tissue that cushions joints, shapes the airway and ear, and serves as a model for growing bone, in three main types.
π§ Memory trick: Three cartilages: Hyaline covers joints and airway (commonest), Elastic bends the ear and epiglottis, Fibrocartilage takes the load in discs and menisci.
What it is: A modified skin gland on the chest wall that produces milk, whose blood and especially lymphatic drainage matter greatly in breast cancer.
π§ Memory trick: Follow the lymph: most of the breast drains to the axilla (assessed by sentinel node biopsy), the inner part to the parasternal nodes; Cooper's ligaments cause skin dimpling.
What it is: Valveless venous channels between the layers of the dura mater that collect blood from the brain and drain it towards the internal jugular veins.
π§ Memory trick: Top to jugular: superior sagittal to confluence, then transverse to sigmoid to internal jugular; the valveless facial-to-cavernous link makes a face infection dangerous.
What it is: The general plan of a vertebra and how it changes along the spine to suit the different jobs of the neck, chest and lower back.
π§ Memory trick: Body in front, arch behind, cord in between: cervical carry the vertebral artery, thoracic carry ribs, lumbar carry weight; the atlas holds the skull, the axis lets it turn.
What it is: The system of veins that carries nutrient-rich blood from the gut to the liver before it returns to the heart, with escape routes if it becomes blocked.
π§ Memory trick: Gut to liver first: the splenic and superior mesenteric veins form the portal vein; when it backs up, blood escapes at the oesophagus, rectum and navel (varices and caput medusae).
What it is: The largest nerve in the body, which supplies the back of the thigh and, through its branches, most of the leg and foot, and is vulnerable to injury in the buttock.
π§ Memory trick: Two nerves in one sheath: the sciatic (L4 to S3) leaves below piriformis and splits into tibial and common fibular; injections use the ventrogluteal (or upper-outer) site to spare it.
What it is: The lowest part of the brainstem, joining the brain to the spinal cord, that houses the vital centres controlling breathing, heartbeat and blood pressure.
π§ Memory trick: The vital brainstem floor: pyramids (motor, decussate here), olives (to cerebellum), cranial nerves nine to twelve, and the centres for breathing and heartbeat.
What it is: The curved top of the aorta in the chest that gives off the great arteries to the head and arms and arches over the root of the left lung.
π§ Memory trick: Three branches over the lung root: brachiocephalic, left common carotid, left subclavian; the left recurrent laryngeal nerve hooks under the arch at the ligamentum arteriosum.
What it is: The named holes in the floor of the skull through which nerves and vessels pass between the brain and the rest of the head and body.
π§ Memory trick: Match hole to contents: optic canal (optic nerve), superior orbital fissure (eye movers and V1), foramen ovale (V3), foramen spinosum (middle meningeal artery), jugular foramen (nerves nine to eleven).
What it is: The central compartment of the chest between the two lungs, holding the heart, great vessels, oesophagus, trachea and other structures.
π§ Memory trick: Front to back around the heart: anterior (thymus), middle (heart and great vessels), posterior (aorta, oesophagus, thoracic duct), with the superior part sitting on top.
What it is: The smaller of the two lungs, with two lobes and a notch that makes room for the heart, and a hilum where the airways and vessels enter.
π§ Memory trick: Left makes room for the heart: two lobes, one fissure, a cardiac notch with the lingula; the left main bronchus is longer and more horizontal.
What it is: The buttock region behind the pelvis, made of the gluteal muscles and crossed by nerves and vessels, and a common site for injections.
π§ Memory trick: Maximus stands you up; medius and minimus steady the pelvis (their failure is a Trendelenburg dip); inject at the ventrogluteal (or upper-outer) site to spare the sciatic nerve.
What it is: The main nerve of the perineum, carrying movement, sensation and control of the pelvic outlet, including the muscles that hold in urine and faeces.
π§ Memory trick: S2, 3 and 4 keep the pelvis off the floor: the pudendal nerve hooks the ischial spine into Alcock's canal and runs the perineum and its sphincters.
What it is: The first and shortest part of the small intestine, a C-shaped tube curving around the head of the pancreas that receives bile and pancreatic juice.
π§ Memory trick: A C around the pancreas: four parts, mostly retroperitoneal; bile and pancreatic ducts enter the second part at the papilla of Vater; it ends at the ligament of Treitz.
What it is: How blood that has supplied the heart muscle is collected and returned, mostly through the coronary sinus into the right atrium.
π§ Memory trick: Most heart blood goes coronary sinus to right atrium; the great, middle and small cardiac veins feed it, while tiny Thebesian veins drain straight into the chambers.
What it is: A pair of endocrine glands sitting on top of the kidneys, each with an outer cortex and an inner medulla that make different hormones.
π§ Memory trick: Caps on the kidneys, two glands in one: cortex (steroids for salt, sugar and sex) outside, medulla (adrenaline and noradrenaline) inside; many arteries in, one vein out.
What it is: The largest secondary lymphoid organ, sitting in the upper left abdomen, which filters blood, recycles old red cells and helps fight infection.
π§ Memory trick: Behind ribs nine to eleven: red pulp filters old red cells, white pulp fights infection, and a notched upper edge marks the spleen when it enlarges.
What it is: The largest internal organ, sitting under the right ribs, which processes nutrients and toxins and has a double blood supply.
π§ Memory trick: Double supply, eight segments: portal vein and hepatic artery in at the porta hepatis, hepatic veins out to the inferior vena cava; the falciform ligament hangs it up front.
What it is: The muscular bag of the upper abdomen that stores and churns food, with a rich blood supply and a lymphatic drainage that matters in stomach cancer.
π§ Memory trick: J-shaped, three muscle layers, coeliac blood: fundus, body and pylorus with two curvatures; lymph to coeliac nodes, and cancer can reach Virchow's node.
What it is: A soft gland lying across the back of the upper abdomen that makes digestive juice and the hormones insulin and glucagon.
π§ Memory trick: Across the back, head in the duodenal C, tail to the spleen: exocrine juice down the duct, insulin and glucagon from the islets; head cancer blocks the bile duct.
What it is: A pair of bean-shaped organs at the back of the abdomen that filter blood to make urine, wrapped in protective layers of fat and fascia.
π§ Memory trick: Bean behind the peritoneum, three wrappings: at the hilum front-to-back it is vein, artery, ureter; cortex outside, medullary pyramids inside draining to the calyces.
What it is: A pea-sized gland hanging beneath the brain that controls many other hormone glands under the direction of the hypothalamus, sitting in a bony hollow of the skull.
π§ Memory trick: Master gland in the sella: anterior (from the mouth roof) runs other glands via hypothalamic portal vessels, posterior (from the brain) stores ADH and oxytocin; tumours squeeze the optic chiasma.
What it is: The seventh cranial nerve, which moves the muscles of facial expression and carries taste and tear and saliva signals, taking a long winding course.
π§ Memory trick: Seventh nerve, five facial branches (Ten Zebras Bit My Cheek): a nerve lesion drops the whole side (Bell's palsy), a brain lesion spares the forehead.
What it is: The pyramid-shaped space of the armpit that lets the main nerves and vessels pass between the neck and the arm.
π§ Memory trick: Gateway to the arm: axillary artery (three parts by pectoralis minor), brachial plexus cords (named around it), and the axillary nodes that drain the breast.
What it is: The triangular hollow in front of the elbow, a crossing point for the main artery, nerves and a tendon of the arm.
π§ Memory trick: TAN from outside in: biceps Tendon, brachial Artery, median Nerve; the brachial artery splits here, and the median cubital vein on the roof is the blood-draw spot.
What it is: The tenth cranial nerve, the longest cranial nerve, which carries parasympathetic fibres to the chest and abdomen and supplies the throat and voice box.
π§ Memory trick: Vagus (CN X) leaves by the jugular foramen; supplies pharynx and larynx (hoarse if hurt); parasympathetic to heart and gut to mid-colon; recurrent laryngeal loops (aorta left, subclavian right).
What it is: The first large artery of the abdominal aorta, which supplies the foregut organs through its three main branches.
π§ Memory trick: Coeliac trunk at T12 feeds the foregut: Left gastric, Splenic and Common hepatic; supplies stomach, spleen, liver, upper pancreas and duodenum; wavy splenic on the pancreas.
What it is: A large egg-shaped mass of grey matter deep in the brain that relays almost all sensory and motor information on its way to the cerebral cortex.
π§ Memory trick: Thalamus relays to the cortex for everything but smell; lateral geniculate for vision, medial geniculate for hearing, ventral posterior for body and face sensation.
What it is: The short uppermost part of the brainstem that connects the forebrain to the pons and carries pathways for eye movement, hearing and reflexes.
π§ Memory trick: Midbrain has the cerebral aqueduct and four colliculi (superior for sight, inferior for sound); CN III and IV move the eye; red nucleus and substantia nigra help movement.
What it is: The cord of nervous tissue running in the vertebral canal that links the brain to the body's nerves and carries out reflexes.
π§ Memory trick: Cord ends at L1 to L2 (conus); cervical and lumbar enlargements; 31 nerve pairs; cauda equina below (safe puncture); grey butterfly inside, white tracts outside; one anterior, two posterior arteries.
What it is: The three parts of the primitive gut tube and the adult organs, arteries and nerve supply that develop from each.
π§ Memory trick: Foregut (coeliac) is mouth to mid-duodenum plus liver and pancreas; midgut (superior mesenteric) reaches two-thirds of the transverse colon; hindgut (inferior mesenteric) to the upper anal canal.
What it is: The pouches lining the inside of the developing throat between the pharyngeal arches, which form several important head and neck structures.
π§ Memory trick: Pouches: 1 makes the middle ear and auditory tube; 2 the palatine tonsil; 3 the inferior parathyroid and thymus; 4 the superior parathyroid; failure gives DiGeorge.
What it is: A space behind the upper jaw that houses the muscles that move the jaw, along with important nerves and vessels.
π§ Memory trick: Infratemporal fossa: pterygoid muscles for chewing, maxillary artery and pterygoid venous plexus, the mandibular nerve (V3), plus the otic ganglion and chorda tympani.
What it is: The hinge joint between the arm and forearm, where three bones meet, allowing bending and straightening of the arm.
π§ Memory trick: The elbow is a hinge (humerus with radius and ulna) for flexion and extension; the trochlea grips the ulna; collateral ligaments steady it; the ulnar nerve lies behind the medial epicondyle (funny bone); the radioulnar joint rotates the forearm.
What it is: The joint between the forearm and the hand and the small carpal bones that make it, allowing the many movements of the wrist.
π§ Memory trick: The wrist is the radius with the proximal carpal row; eight carpal bones in two rows; the scaphoid breaks in a fall (poor blood supply, so non-union); the carpal arch forms the carpal tunnel (median nerve); Colles fracture at the radius.
What it is: The links between neighbouring arteries that provide an alternative route for blood if one vessel is blocked.
π§ Memory trick: An anastomosis is a bypass link between arteries; a slow block lets collaterals grow (tissue survives); end-arteries (retina, brain) have none, so a sudden block causes an infarct; rich links lie around joints.
What it is: A common small pouch left over from early development on the small intestine, which can cause problems that mimic appendicitis.
π§ Memory trick: Meckel's is a leftover vitellointestinal duct pouch; the rule of twos (2% of people, 2 feet from the ileocaecal junction, 2 inches long, 2 tissue types); may bleed (acid from stomach tissue) or mimic appendicitis.
What it is: The spinal nerve roots that supply key muscles and reflexes, used to locate the level of a nerve injury.
π§ Memory trick: Reflex roots: ankle S1 and S2, knee L2 to L4, biceps C5 and C6, triceps C7 and C8, small hand muscles T1; test them to localise the injured root.
What it is: The cone-shaped bony socket that holds and protects the eyeball, formed by several skull bones.
π§ Memory trick: The orbit is a bony pyramid for the eye; seven bones (frontal, maxilla, zygomatic, sphenoid, ethmoid, lacrimal, palatine); a thin floor and medial wall give a blow-out fracture; the optic canal and superior orbital fissure lie at the back.
What it is: The windpipe and the branching air tubes that carry air from the throat down into the lungs.
π§ Memory trick: The trachea is a C-ring tube that splits at the carina into the main bronchi (the right wider, shorter and more vertical, so inhaled objects go there); it branches like a tree to bronchioles and air sacs; a mucus-and-hair escalator cleans it.
What it is: The air-filled spaces in the skull bones around the nose that lighten the skull and open into the nasal cavity.
π§ Memory trick: The paranasal sinuses (frontal, maxillary, ethmoid, sphenoid) lighten the skull and add voice resonance; they drain into the nose (a block gives sinusitis); the maxillary is largest and drains poorly (high opening).
What it is: The sequence of mechanical and electrical events in one heartbeat (systole + diastole).
π§ Memory trick: S1 marks the Start of Systole.
What it is: A rapid, self-propagating reversal of membrane potential that carries nerve and muscle signals.
π§ Memory trick: NaβΊ in to fire, KβΊ out to reset.
What it is: The functional unit of the kidney; GFR is the rate at which plasma is filtered.
What it is: The sigmoid curve relating haemoglobin's oxygen saturation to the partial pressure of oxygen.
π§ Memory trick: Right shift = 'CADET, face Right!': COβ, Acid, 2,3-DPG, Exercise, Temperature.
What it is: The synapse where a motor neuron signals a skeletal muscle fibre to contract.
What it is: The volume of blood the heart pumps each minute.
π§ Memory trick: CO = HR Γ SV.
What it is: The hormonal cascade that regulates blood pressure and fluid balance.
What it is: How the body keeps arterial blood pH within a tight range (~7.35β7.45).
π§ Memory trick: ROME β Respiratory Opposite (pH & PaCOβ move opposite ways), Metabolic Equal.
What it is: How the fetus routes blood around its non-functioning lungs and liver.
What it is: T3 and T4 β the master regulators of the body's metabolic rate.
What it is: The neural pathway that produces an automatic, rapid response to a stimulus.
What it is: Red-cell antigens that determine blood-transfusion compatibility.
π§ Memory trick: O-negative red cells = universal donor; AB-positive = universal recipient.
What it is: The chain of clotting factors that forms a stable fibrin clot.
π§ Memory trick: PT tracks the extrinsic path (warfarin); APTT tracks the intrinsic path (heparin).
What it is: Measurement of the air volumes moved by the lungs.
What it is: How the body's total water is distributed between compartments.
π§ Memory trick: 60-40-20 rule: 60% water, 40% intracellular, 20% extracellular (of body weight).
What it is: The surface recording of the heart's electrical activity.
π§ Memory trick: P-QRS-T: atria depolarise, ventricles depolarise, ventricles repolarise.
What it is: The balance of hydrostatic and oncotic pressures governing fluid movement across capillaries.
What it is: Secretion of hydrochloric acid by parietal cells, regulated in three phases.
π§ Memory trick: GHA drive acid: Gastrin, Histamine, Acetylcholine.
What it is: How the kidney concentrates urine.
π§ Memory trick: Ascending limb pumps salt; ADH opens water channels to concentrate urine.
What it is: A systematic read of an arterial blood gas to find acid-base and oxygenation problems.
π§ Memory trick: pH, then CO2 (respiratory) and HCO3 (metabolic), then compensation.
What it is: How parathyroid hormone, active vitamin D and calcitonin keep the ionised plasma calcium inside a narrow range.
π§ Memory trick: Parathyroid hormone Phosphate Trashing hormone: calcium up, phosphate out.
What it is: The hypothalamic balance between heat gain and heat loss that holds core temperature steady, including during fever and exercise.
π§ Memory trick: Anterior hypothalamus is the air conditioner; posterior hypothalamus is the heater.
What it is: How the brainstem and the chemoreceptors set the depth and rate of breathing, minute by minute, without you thinking about it.
π§ Memory trick: Carbon dioxide sets the pace. Oxygen only takes the wheel when it has fallen a long way.
What it is: How the marrow turns a stem cell into a red blood cell, what it needs to do it, and what tells it to speed up.
π§ Memory trick: Erythropoietin from the kidney is the signal. Iron, B12 and folate are the bricks.
What it is: Oxygen can fail tissues at four different points, and naming which point is failing explains the whole clinical picture.
π§ Memory trick: Not enough in the air, not enough carriers, not enough flow, or not able to use it.
What it is: The cerebellum does not start movement; it compares the movement you intended with the movement you are making and corrects the difference.
π§ Memory trick: DANISH: Dysdiadochokinesia, Ataxia, Nystagmus, Intention tremor, Scanning speech, Hypotonia.
What it is: The body's storage hormone: how beta cells sense glucose, release insulin, and switch the whole body from breaking down to building up.
π§ Memory trick: Insulin says store it: glucose in, breakdown off.
What it is: Two secretions from one gland: a bicarbonate-rich fluid that neutralises stomach acid, and an enzyme-rich fluid that digests all three food groups.
π§ Memory trick: Secretin brings the bicarbonate, cholecystokinin brings the enzymes.
What it is: A small region at the base of the brain that links the nervous and endocrine systems and keeps the body's internal conditions stable.
π§ Memory trick: The hypothalamus is the thermostat, the appetite switch, the body clock and the boss of the pituitary β homeostasis headquarters.
What it is: The anterior pituitary hormone that drives body growth and shifts metabolism towards using fat and sparing glucose.
π§ Memory trick: Grows bone and muscle, burns fat and spares glucose β and does much of it through liver-made IGF-1.
What it is: The coordinated movement of a food bolus from mouth to stomach, in three phases, that protects the airway on the way.
π§ Memory trick: Three phases β mouth (voluntary), pharynx (reflex, airway shuts), oesophagus (peristalsis) β swallowing is airway protection with feeding attached.
What it is: The process in the testis that turns diploid stem cells into mature haploid spermatozoa, under hormonal control.
π§ Memory trick: FSH acts on Sertoli cells for support, LH acts on Leydig cells for testosterone β both are needed to make sperm.
What it is: The blood supply to the heart muscle itself, and the special feature that most of it flows during diastole.
π§ Memory trick: The heart drinks during diastole β a racing heart starves its own muscle by cutting filling time.
What it is: Pain felt at a site away from its true source, explained by how visceral and skin nerves share pathways in the spinal cord.
π§ Memory trick: Same spinal segment, confused brain β the diaphragm speaks through the shoulder and the heart through the left arm.
What it is: The ways substances cross the cell membrane, either downhill without energy or uphill using energy, which lets a cell control what enters and leaves.
π§ Memory trick: Downhill is free (diffusion and facilitated diffusion), uphill costs ATP (primary active); borrow a pump's gradient and you get a second-hand, secondary active ride.
What it is: How a nerve signal makes a skeletal muscle shorten, by calcium letting the protein filaments slide over one another and pull using energy from ATP.
π§ Memory trick: Calcium uncovers, myosin pulls, ATP resets: no calcium means no contraction, and no ATP means the cross-bridges cannot let go.
What it is: The special features of heart muscle that let it beat on its own, in a coordinated way, without tiring, throughout life.
π§ Memory trick: Beats alone, beats as one, never tires: automaticity sets the rhythm, intercalated discs make it one unit, and the long plateau prevents tetanus.
What it is: The chain of nerves that carries signals from the retina to the visual cortex, arranged so that each side of the brain sees the opposite half of the world.
π§ Memory trick: Nasal fibres cross, temporal fibres stay: cut the nerve and lose an eye, squeeze the chiasma and lose both outer fields, hit behind it and lose the same side in both eyes.
What it is: The bundles of nerve fibres running up and down the spinal cord that carry sensation to the brain and movement commands from it.
π§ Memory trick: Dorsal columns cross high in the medulla for touch and position; the spinothalamic tract crosses low for pain and temperature, which is why Brown-Sequard splits the two.
What it is: A group of deep brain nuclei that fine-tune movement, smoothing and scaling voluntary actions and holding back unwanted ones.
π§ Memory trick: The brain's volume control for movement: dopamine tunes the direct and indirect pathways; losing dopamine (Parkinson) slows movement, while losing the striatal brake (Huntington) lets chorea loose.
What it is: The smallest blood cells, really cell fragments, that plug damaged vessels and start the clotting process to stop bleeding.
π§ Memory trick: Adhere, activate, aggregate: platelets stick to collagen (with von Willebrand factor), release their granules, and pile up into the first plug.
What it is: The iron-containing protein in red cells that carries oxygen, built from four globin chains each holding a haem group with one iron atom.
π§ Memory trick: Four chains, four haems, four oxygens: adult is two-alpha-two-beta (HbA), foetal is two-alpha-two-gamma (HbF) and grips oxygen tighter.
What it is: Specialised nerve endings that detect a stimulus such as touch, heat or light and convert it into electrical signals the nervous system can read.
π§ Memory trick: Different energies, one currency: receptors transduce their stimulus into a receptor potential, then code its strength as firing rate along a labelled line.
What it is: How the products of digestion are taken up across the lining of the small intestine into the blood and lymph, aided by a huge surface area.
π§ Memory trick: Sugars and amino acids ride sodium into the blood; fats ride micelles in, become chylomicrons, and leave by the lymph (lacteals).
What it is: The body's two-tier defence system: a fast, general innate response and a slower, specific adaptive response that remembers past invaders.
π§ Memory trick: Fast and general versus slow and specific: innate has no memory, adaptive does; T cells handle cells, B cells make antibodies.
What it is: The part of the nervous system that automatically controls internal organs, glands and vessels, through two divisions that usually balance the body's activity.
π§ Memory trick: Two divisions, two neurons each: sympathetic is fight-or-flight (noradrenaline), parasympathetic is rest-and-digest (acetylcholine); the adrenal medulla is a modified sympathetic ganglion.
What it is: The air-filled chamber that turns sound vibrations in air into stronger vibrations in the fluid of the inner ear, using three tiny bones.
π§ Memory trick: Air to fluid needs a boost: the big eardrum and the lever ossicles concentrate force onto the small oval window (impedance matching).
What it is: A stretch sensor inside skeletal muscle that drives a reflex contraction and helps the body sense and control muscle length and posture.
π§ Memory trick: Stretch to protect: the spindle senses lengthening and fires a one-synapse reflex that shortens the same muscle while the opposite muscle relaxes.
What it is: The changes in the heart, lungs, muscles and metabolism that let the body meet the greatly increased demand for oxygen and energy during exercise.
π§ Memory trick: More demand, more delivery: heart rate and stroke volume raise cardiac output, blood shifts to muscle, the oxygen curve shifts right, and lactate covers the shortfall.
What it is: The coordinated muscle movements of the gut that mix food with the digestive juices and push it along, from the stomach to the anus.
π§ Memory trick: Mix and move: segmentation mixes, peristalsis moves, sphincters gate, and the migrating motor complex sweeps up between meals.
What it is: The steady electrical voltage across the membrane of a resting cell, set up mainly by potassium, which nerve and muscle cells use as their starting point.
π§ Memory trick: Potassium sets the rest: a leaky-to-potassium membrane makes the inside about minus seventy millivolts; the sodium-potassium pump keeps the gradients that make it possible.
What it is: The back part of the pituitary gland, which stores and releases two hormones made in the hypothalamus: one that saves water and one that acts in childbirth.
π§ Memory trick: Made in the hypothalamus, stored behind: ADH saves water (its lack causes diabetes insipidus), oxytocin contracts the womb and lets milk down.
What it is: The greenish fluid made by the liver that helps digest and absorb fats and gets rid of waste such as old pigment and cholesterol.
π§ Memory trick: Detergent and dustbin: bile salts emulsify fat and ferry it in micelles (recycled by the enterohepatic circulation), while bilirubin and cholesterol ride out as waste.
What it is: The hormones released by the gut wall that coordinate digestion, switching the stomach, pancreas and gallbladder on and off at the right times.
π§ Memory trick: Gut hormones run the meal: Gastrin makes acid, Secretin neutralises it (pancreatic bicarbonate), CCK empties the gallbladder and releases enzymes; GIP boosts insulin for a glucose meal.
What it is: A specialised structure in the kidney that senses blood pressure and salt, and releases renin to defend the circulation.
π§ Memory trick: The juxtaglomerular apparatus (where a tubule meets its own glomerulus): juxtaglomerular cells sense low pressure and release renin, the macula densa senses tubular salt, with supporting cells between; renin starts the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system that raises blood pressure.
What it is: The rate at which the kidneys filter fluid from the blood into the tubules, the best overall measure of kidney function.
π§ Memory trick: GFR is the volume filtered by both kidneys per unit time (the best measure of kidney function); driven by glomerular capillary pressure, opposed by capsule pressure and plasma-protein pull; the barrier holds back cells and big proteins; estimated from blood creatinine.
What it is: How a nerve signal is passed to a muscle at the neuromuscular junction, causing the muscle to contract.
π§ Memory trick: Neuromuscular junction: a nerve impulse lets calcium in, releasing acetylcholine, which binds muscle receptors so the muscle depolarises and contracts; acetylcholinesterase ends it; targeted by myasthenia gravis, muscle relaxants and some poisons.
What it is: How the thyroid gland makes its hormones and how they set the body's metabolic rate.
π§ Memory trick: The thyroid makes T4 and the more active T3 from iodine and thyroglobulin; controlled by hypothalamic TRH, then pituitary TSH, with feedback; it raises metabolic rate, heat and oxygen use; vital for growth and brain development; too much is hyper, too little is hypo.
What it is: How the body stops bleeding from a damaged vessel, through the actions of vessels, platelets and clotting proteins.
π§ Memory trick: Haemostasis: the vessel narrows, then a platelet plug (primary), then a fibrin mesh from the clotting cascade (secondary); intrinsic and extrinsic pathways meet in the common pathway (aPTT, PT); natural brakes and fibrinolysis keep it in check.
What it is: The main pathway carrying commands for voluntary movement from the brain's motor cortex to the muscles.
π§ Memory trick: The corticospinal (pyramidal) tract carries voluntary movement from the motor cortex through the internal capsule and brainstem, crossing in the medulla (pyramidal decussation), so one side controls the opposite body; an upper motor neuron lesion gives spastic weakness, brisk reflexes and an upgoing toe.
What it is: How the body keeps blood sugar within a narrow range, mainly through the opposing hormones insulin and glucagon.
π§ Memory trick: Blood glucose is kept in a narrow range (the brain needs it): insulin lowers it (glucose into cells, stored as glycogen and fat); glucagon raises it (liver glycogen breakdown plus new glucose); adrenaline, cortisol and growth hormone also raise it; insulin failure is diabetes.
What it is: The normal ranges of the body's key measurements, which act as a baseline against which illness is judged.
π§ Memory trick: Vital signs are temperature, pulse, breathing, blood pressure and oxygen: normal core temperature about thirty-seven degrees; adult pulse about sixty to a hundred a minute; breathing about twelve to twenty a minute; blood pressure around one-twenty over eighty; oxygen in the upper nineties; children run faster.
What it is: The cytoplasmic breakdown of one glucose to two pyruvate, with a net gain of 2 ATP.
What it is: The mitochondrial oxidation of acetyl-CoA that supplies electron carriers for ATP production.
What it is: The hepatic pathway that converts toxic ammonia into water-soluble urea for excretion.
π§ Memory trick: Ordinarily Careless Crappers Are Also Frivolous About Urine β Ornithine, Carbamoyl phosphate, Citrulline, Aspartate, Argininosuccinate, Arginine, Fumarate, Urea.
What it is: The final stage of aerobic respiration that produces most of the cell's ATP.
What it is: Essential micronutrients grouped by how they are absorbed and stored.
π§ Memory trick: Fat-soluble vitamins = ADEK.
What it is: The semi-conservative process by which a cell copies its DNA before division.
What it is: The classic patterns by which single genes pass through families.
What it is: The four levels of organisation that give a protein its shape and function.
What it is: Particles that carry fats (lipids) through the blood.
π§ Memory trick: LDL = Lousy, HDL = Healthy.
What it is: Biological catalysts that speed up reactions without being consumed.
What it is: Synthesis of glucose from non-carbohydrate precursors (lactate, glycerol, amino acids).
π§ Memory trick: Gluconeogenesis = glycolysis reversed, bypassing 3 irreversible steps.
What it is: Storage and breakdown of glycogen, and the diseases of its enzymes.
π§ Memory trick: Von Gierke, Pompe, Cori, McArdle = glycogenoses I-V.
What it is: A glucose pathway generating NADPH and ribose-5-phosphate.
π§ Memory trick: PPP makes NADPH + ribose; G6PD is the key enzyme.
What it is: Energy from fat during fasting, and the ketones it produces.
π§ Memory trick: Fasting -> beta-oxidation -> acetyl-CoA -> ketones for the brain.
What it is: The ways a change in DNA sequence alters the reading of a gene, from a single silent base swap to a whole shifted reading frame.
π§ Memory trick: Silent stays the same, Missense is mistaken, Nonsense stops the sense, Frameshift loses the frame.
What it is: A family of laboratory methods that separate molecules, transfer them to a membrane, then detect a specific target with a nucleic-acid probe or an antibody, depending on the method.
π§ Memory trick: SNoW DRoP: Southern-DNA, Northern-RNA, Western-Protein.
What it is: HGPRT recycles purine bases back into nucleotides; its complete absence produces the Lesch-Nyhan phenotype.
π§ Memory trick: Lesch-Nyhan: Lacks Nucleotide salvage, so urate rises and self-injury appears.
What it is: The process by which RNA polymerase copies a gene's DNA template strand into a complementary strand of RNA.
π§ Memory trick: RNA polymerases I, II and III make ribosomal, messenger and transfer RNA β count them in order, r-m-t.
What it is: How the breakdown of haem produces bilirubin, and how a block at different points gives pre-hepatic, hepatic or post-hepatic jaundice.
π§ Memory trick: Unconjugated is fat-soluble and stays in blood; conjugated is water-soluble and spills into urine, so dark urine points to a conjugated cause.
What it is: The laboratory tools that cut, join, copy and read DNA, which underpin modern molecular biology and biotechnology.
π§ Memory trick: Cut with a restriction enzyme, paste with ligase, carry with a vector, copy with PCR and read with electrophoresis.
What it is: How the body builds haem step by step, and how blocks in that pathway cause the porphyrias.
π§ Memory trick: Blocked early gives neurovisceral attacks; blocked late gives photosensitive skin β where the pathway jams decides the picture.
What it is: The intracellular signals that relay a hormone's message from a surface receptor to the machinery inside the cell.
π§ Memory trick: Gs raises cyclic AMP; Gq raises IP3, DAG and calcium β the receptor's G-protein decides which second messenger fires.
What it is: Inherited enzyme defects in amino-acid metabolism, each blocking one step and causing a characteristic build-up.
π§ Memory trick: Phenylketonuria smells musty, alkaptonuria turns black, maple syrup disease smells sweet β the odour or colour often names the block.
What it is: In eukaryotes, the processing steps that turn a freshly made primary RNA (pre-mRNA) transcript into a mature messenger RNA before it leaves the nucleus.
π§ Memory trick: Cap the front, tail the back, splice out the introns: three edits turn a raw transcript into a mature messenger RNA.
What it is: How the body absorbs, transports, stores and recycles iron, a metal needed for haemoglobin but toxic in excess, so its level is tightly controlled.
π§ Memory trick: Hepcidin is the iron gatekeeper: high stores raise hepcidin and shut ferroportin, so absorption drops; low stores drop hepcidin and let iron in.
What it is: How the liver chemically alters foreign compounds and drugs, usually making them more water-soluble and easier to excrete, in two broad phases.
π§ Memory trick: Phase I makes it reactive (P450 oxidation), phase II makes it soluble (conjugation): unmask a handle, then bolt on a water-loving group.
What it is: A cluster of bacterial genes, switched on and off together, that lets a bacterium make the enzymes to use lactose only when lactose is present.
π§ Memory trick: Lactose lifts the lock: the repressor sits on the operator until allolactose removes it; low glucose plus high cyclic AMP then turns the volume up.
What it is: Chemical systems that resist changes in pH by mopping up or releasing hydrogen ions, keeping blood pH within a narrow healthy range.
π§ Memory trick: Twenty to one keeps it done: a 20:1 ratio of bicarbonate to dissolved carbon dioxide holds blood pH near 7.4, with lungs and kidneys guarding each side.
What it is: The proteins dissolved in blood plasma, chiefly albumin and the globulins, which carry substances, defend the body, clot blood and hold fluid in the vessels.
π§ Memory trick: Albumin holds the water in and ferries cargo; globulins transport, clot, and (as gamma globulins) defend.
What it is: The set of rules by which the sequence of bases in messenger RNA is read in triplets to specify the amino acids of a protein.
π§ Memory trick: Start with AUG (methionine), stop at UAA/UAG/UGA; the code is degenerate, nearly universal, and wobbles at the third base.
What it is: The systems that find and correct damage or mistakes in DNA, protecting the genetic code from mutations that could cause cancer or cell death.
π§ Memory trick: Match the damage to the fix: mismatch repair for copy errors, base excision for a single bad base, nucleotide excision for UV dimers, recombination or end-joining for breaks.
What it is: Metals and other elements the body needs only in tiny amounts, which act as helpers for enzymes; too little or too much causes specific diseases.
π§ Memory trick: Tiny amounts, big jobs: iron for haemoglobin, iodine for thyroid, copper (Wilson and Menkes), zinc for healing, selenium for antioxidant defence, fluoride for teeth.
What it is: A laboratory method that makes millions of copies of a chosen stretch of DNA, so that a tiny sample can be studied or detected.
π§ Memory trick: Denature, anneal, extend, repeat: heat splits the strands, primers mark the target, and a heat-stable polymerase roughly doubles it every cycle.
What it is: A laboratory technique that separates molecules such as DNA or proteins by pulling them through a gel with an electric field, sorting them by size and charge.
π§ Memory trick: Charge and size decide the race: negative DNA runs to the positive end, SDS-PAGE sorts proteins by size, and an M band flags a monoclonal protein.
What it is: The reactions that shuffle the nitrogen of amino acids, the first step in using them for energy and in getting rid of surplus nitrogen safely.
π§ Memory trick: Nitrogen funnels into glutamate: transaminases (needing vitamin B6) collect it, deamination frees ammonia, and the liver turns ammonia into urea.
What it is: The simplest amino acid, glycine, which is a building block for an unusually wide range of important molecules in the body.
π§ Memory trick: Small amino acid, many products: glycine builds haem, purines, creatine, glutathione, bile salts and collagen, and calms the spinal cord.
What it is: How the body makes and breaks down the pyrimidine bases of DNA and RNA, a pathway that differs in key ways from purine metabolism.
π§ Memory trick: Ring first, then sugar: pyrimidines build the base before attaching it, break down to soluble beta-alanine (no gout), and jam up in orotic aciduria.
What it is: How the body makes creatine to store quick energy in muscle, and how its breakdown product creatinine is used to judge kidney function.
π§ Memory trick: Creatine stores quick energy (as creatine phosphate); its steady breakdown to creatinine, cleared by the kidney, makes creatinine a handy kidney test.
What it is: The four vitamins that dissolve in fat, are stored in the body, and each have distinct jobs, so both deficiency and excess can cause disease.
π§ Memory trick: A-D-E-K dissolve in fat and store up: A for night vision, D for calcium and bone, E as antioxidant, K for clotting; stored vitamins can reach toxic levels.
What it is: The B-complex vitamins and vitamin C, which dissolve in water, are not stored for long, and mostly act as helpers for enzymes.
π§ Memory trick: Not stored, so eat them often: B1 beriberi, B3 pellagra, B12/folate megaloblastic anaemia, B12 also hits nerves, folate guards the neural tube, C prevents scurvy.
What it is: The most abundant protein in the body, a strong triple-stranded rope that gives skin, bone, tendon and blood vessels their tensile strength.
π§ Memory trick: A glycine-rich triple rope: every third residue is glycine, vitamin C hydroxylates it (scurvy if lacking); type I bone/skin, II cartilage, III vessels, IV basement membrane.
What it is: How the body builds fatty acids from small carbon units when energy is plentiful, storing surplus fuel as fat.
π§ Memory trick: Build when fed, in the cytoplasm: acetyl-CoA carboxylase makes malonyl-CoA (rate-limiting, needs biotin), fatty acid synthase uses NADPH, and insulin turns it on.
What it is: Inherited diseases in which a missing enzyme lets undigested material pile up inside the cell's lysosomes, damaging organs over time.
π§ Memory trick: Missing enzyme, growing pile: Gaucher (liver, spleen, bone), Tay-Sachs (cherry-red spot), Niemann-Pick (sphingomyelin) β the substrate that cannot be broken down accumulates.
What it is: Long sugar chains that cushion joints and hold tissues together, and the inherited diseases that arise when the body cannot break them down.
π§ Memory trick: Sugar chains that cushion: hyaluronic acid (joints/eye), chondroitin (cartilage), heparin (blood thinner); when they cannot be broken down, mucopolysaccharidoses (Hurler, Hunter) result.
What it is: The four ways blood pH can be disturbed, grouped by whether the problem starts in the metabolism or the breathing, and how the body compensates.
π§ Memory trick: Two organs, four disorders: metabolic (bicarbonate) versus respiratory (carbon dioxide), each an acidosis or alkalosis; the anion gap splits the metabolic acidoses.
What it is: How the body switches its whole metabolism between storing fuel after a meal and releasing fuel between meals, coordinated by hormones.
π§ Memory trick: Store when fed (insulin), release when fasting (glucagon): glycogen and new glucose together, then fat and ketones in starvation; the liver runs the switchboard.
What it is: Local hormone-like messengers made from a fatty acid in cell membranes, which control inflammation, pain, fever, clotting and blood flow.
π§ Memory trick: From membrane fat to local signals: COX makes prostaglandins (inflammation) and thromboxane (clotting), lipoxygenase makes leukotrienes (airway tightening).
What it is: Blood and urine tests that measure how well the kidneys filter waste, chiefly urea, creatinine and the clearance of a marker substance.
π§ Memory trick: Clearance is plasma cleared per minute and approximates GFR; creatinine is the practical marker (steady from muscle), inulin the gold standard; urea is less specific.
What it is: The two main charged salts of body fluids, whose blood levels are tightly controlled and whose disturbance affects nerves, muscle and the heart.
π§ Memory trick: Sodium sits outside and follows water (osmolality); potassium sits inside and sets the membrane potential (heart danger when high); aldosterone keeps sodium and dumps potassium.
What it is: The two opposing classes of genes whose mutation drives cancer: accelerators that are switched on and brakes that are switched off.
π§ Memory trick: Oncogenes are a stuck accelerator (one hit, dominant); tumour suppressors are failed brakes (two hits); p53 is the guardian, RB the gatekeeper.
What it is: How the body makes and clears uric acid, the end product of purine breakdown, and how its excess causes gout.
π§ Memory trick: Purines end as uric acid (no uricase in humans); a high level makes urate crystals and gout (big-toe podagra, tophi); worse with Lesch-Nyhan and high cell turnover.
What it is: Abnormal immunoglobulin proteins made by a single clone of plasma cells, detected in blood and urine in disorders such as myeloma.
π§ Memory trick: Paraprotein is one clone's M-band on electrophoresis; Bence Jones is free light chains in urine that precipitate on warming then redissolve; think myeloma.
What it is: A group of blood tests that together show how well the liver, kidneys, heart and other organs are working.
π§ Memory trick: Liver is bilirubin plus ALT/AST/ALP plus albumin; kidney is urea/creatinine/GFR; heart is troponin; read patterns, not single values.
What it is: The idea that a laboratory result is judged against a normal range, and that some extreme values need fast attention.
π§ Memory trick: Reference range is the middle 95 percent (1 in 20 healthy fall out); more tests bring more false alarms; a critical value means danger and is reported at once.
What it is: Bacterial enzymes that cut DNA at specific sequences, used as molecular scissors to move genes between organisms.
π§ Memory trick: Restriction enzymes are molecular scissors (palindrome sites, sticky ends); vector and gene cut alike, ligase joins them; the host copies the recombinant DNA.
What it is: The rapid vascular and cellular response of tissue to injury or infection.
π§ Memory trick: Rubor, Calor, Dolor, Tumor, Functio laesa.
What it is: Two forms of cell death: programmed and controlled vs traumatic and passive.
What it is: The features that separate a benign growth from a cancer.
What it is: A chronic disease in which lipid plaques build up within artery walls.
What it is: Pathological clot formation inside an intact blood vessel.
π§ Memory trick: Virchow's triad: Injury, Stasis, Hypercoagulability.
What it is: Excess fluid in the interstitial space, driven by disturbed Starling forces.
What it is: An organised collection of macrophages formed in chronic inflammation.
What it is: Extracellular deposition of misfolded 'amyloid' protein that damages organs.
What it is: The changes cells undergo when stressed or damaged.
What it is: Substances (often in blood) associated with particular cancers.
What it is: Reversible changes in cell size, number or type in response to stress.
π§ Memory trick: HHAM - Hypertrophy, Hyperplasia, Atrophy, Metaplasia.
What it is: A detached intravascular mass (solid, liquid or gas) carried to a distant site.
π§ Memory trick: An embolus travels; a thrombus forms in place.
What it is: Tissue necrosis caused by loss of blood supply (ischaemia).
What it is: Prolonged inflammation with simultaneous tissue destruction and repair.
π§ Memory trick: Chronic = mononuclear cells + fibrosis.
What it is: The morphological types of unregulated cell death.
π§ Memory trick: Coagulative, Liquefactive, Caseous, Fat, Fibrinoid, Gangrenous.
What it is: How the aggressiveness and spread of a cancer are described.
π§ Memory trick: Grade = how it Looks; Stage = how far it Spread (TNM).
What it is: Reading a liver blood panel to localise the problem.
π§ Memory trick: ALT/AST = hepatocellular; ALP/GGT = cholestatic.
What it is: Reading the complete blood count to spot common problems.
π§ Memory trick: Anaemia by MCV: micro (iron), normo (chronic), macro (B12/folate).
What it is: Reading the PT, APTT and related coagulation tests.
π§ Memory trick: PT = extrinsic (warfarin); APTT = intrinsic (heparin).
What it is: Reading TSH with free T4 to classify thyroid status.
π§ Memory trick: In primary disease, TSH moves opposite to the thyroid hormones.
What it is: Using ferritin, iron, transferrin and saturation to classify anaemia.
π§ Memory trick: Low ferritin = iron deficiency; a high one may just be inflammation.
What it is: Anaemia caused by shortened red cell survival, classified by where the cells are destroyed and by whether the cause is immune.
π§ Memory trick: Haemolysis screen: reticulocytes up, lactate dehydrogenase up, bilirubin up, haptoglobin down.
What it is: A framework that sorts anaemia by red-cell size (the MCV) into microcytic, normocytic and macrocytic, pointing to the likely cause.
π§ Memory trick: Sort by size first β small means iron and thalassaemia, large means B12 and folate, normal means bleed, break-down or marrow.
What it is: The body's blood-cell factory, and the ways it changes when the body needs more cells or when disease invades it.
π§ Memory trick: Red marrow makes cells, yellow is spare capacity β under stress yellow turns red and the liver and spleen can pitch in.
What it is: A stained film of blood whose cell shapes and inclusions give morphological clues that help narrow the differential of anaemia and other blood disorders.
π§ Memory trick: The film names the disease β targets, sickles, schistocytes and tear-drops each tell their own story.
What it is: The end stage of many chronic liver diseases, in which diffuse scarring and regenerative nodules replace the normal liver architecture.
π§ Memory trick: Nodules, fibrosis and lost architecture β cirrhosis harms in two ways: it blocks flow (portal hypertension) and it loses function.
What it is: Enlargement of the spleen, grouped by the mechanism that drives it, from congestion to infiltration to overwork.
π§ Memory trick: Group the causes by mechanism β congestion, immune work, cell breakdown and infiltration.
What it is: A group of blood cancers in which abnormal white cells multiply in the bone marrow and blood, crowding out normal cells; grouped as acute or chronic and myeloid or lymphoid.
π§ Memory trick: Two by two: acute (blasts, fast) versus chronic (mature, slow), myeloid versus lymphoid; ALL in children, AML with Auer rods, CML with Philadelphia, CLL with smudge cells.
What it is: A cancer of lymphoid tissue characterised by Reed-Sternberg cells in a reactive background, which usually starts in one group of lymph nodes and spreads in an orderly way.
π§ Memory trick: Owl-eyes in an orderly march: Reed-Sternberg cells are the giveaway, and Hodgkin lymphoma spreads node-group to node-group.
What it is: A lung disease in which the air sacs are permanently enlarged and their walls destroyed, reducing the surface for gas exchange and trapping air.
π§ Memory trick: Proteases win: without enough antiprotease, enzymes eat the alveolar walls; smoking hits the upper lobes (centriacinar), alpha-1-antitrypsin deficiency hits all of it (panacinar).
What it is: The abnormal deposit of calcium salts in body tissues, occurring either in already-damaged tissue or because of a disturbance of calcium or phosphate metabolism.
π§ Memory trick: Dystrophic needs Damaged tissue (normal blood calcium); Metastatic needs More calcium in the blood (normal tissue).
What it is: The multi-step process by which normal cells become cancerous through accumulated changes in the genes that control growth, death and repair.
π§ Memory trick: Accelerators and brakes: oncogenes are stuck accelerators (one hit is enough), tumour suppressors are failed brakes (both copies lost), and TP53 is the master guard.
What it is: Growths arising in bone, ranging from harmless benign lesions to aggressive malignant cancers, often recognised by the patient's age and the bone site.
π§ Memory trick: Age and site sort them: osteosarcoma at the teenage knee (sunburst), Ewing in a child's shaft (onion-skin), giant cell tumour at the adult bone end (soap-bubble).
What it is: An immune complication that can follow a throat infection with group A streptococcus, in which cross-reacting immune responses damage the heart, joints and other tissues.
π§ Memory trick: It licks the joints but bites the heart: streptococcal mimicry brings Aschoff bodies, migratory arthritis and, years later, a scarred mitral valve.
What it is: The main cancers arising from thyroid follicular or C cells, which differ in their cell of origin, microscopic look, way of spreading and outlook.
π§ Memory trick: Papillary-lymphatics-Orphan-Annie nuclei; Follicular-blood-capsule invasion; Medullary-C cells-amyloid-MEN 2; Anaplastic-elderly-aggressive.
What it is: How the body repairs damaged tissue, either by regenerating the original cells or by filling the gap with a fibrous scar.
π§ Memory trick: Regenerate or scar: labile and stable cells can regrow, permanent cells scar; clean cuts heal by first intention, open wounds by second intention.
What it is: The two commonest skin cancers, both linked to sun exposure, which arise from cells of the epidermis and uncommonly metastasise.
π§ Memory trick: Sun-driven keratinocyte cancers: basal cell is a pearly rodent ulcer that rarely spreads, squamous cell is scaly and can reach lymph nodes.
What it is: Two long-term inflammatory diseases of the bowel, Crohn disease and ulcerative colitis, that differ in where and how deeply they affect the gut.
π§ Memory trick: Crohn is patchy, transmural, mouth-to-anus with granulomas and fistulae; ulcerative colitis is continuous, mucosal, colon-only with crypt abscesses and cancer risk.
What it is: Laboratory methods that colour specific tissue components or use antibodies to reveal particular molecules, helping a pathologist identify and classify disease.
π§ Memory trick: H and E for the overview, then targeted stains: PAS for sugars, Perls for iron, Ziehl-Neelsen for TB, Congo red for amyloid, and antibodies (IHC) for proteins.
What it is: Diseases that damage the filtering units of the kidney, presenting in two broad patterns: a nephritic picture of inflammation and a nephrotic picture of heavy protein loss.
π§ Memory trick: Nephritic is inflamed and bloody (blood in urine, high pressure); nephrotic is leaky and frothy (heavy protein, low albumin, oedema).
What it is: What can happen to a blood clot after it forms inside a vessel, ranging from harmless dissolving to breaking off and blocking a distant vessel.
π§ Memory trick: Four fates of a clot: Resolve, Organise (and re-canalise), Propagate, or Embolise; an arterial one may also infarct the tissue beyond.
What it is: Conditions in which blood fails to clot properly, causing easy or prolonged bleeding, from either a platelet problem or a clotting-factor problem.
π§ Memory trick: Platelet problems bleed shallow (petechiae, mucosa); factor problems bleed deep (joints, muscles); haemophilia is factor VIII or IX, and von Willebrand is the commonest inherited one.
What it is: The rules used to name tumours, which usually reveal both the tissue a tumour came from and whether it is benign or malignant.
π§ Memory trick: -oma is usually benign; carcinoma means epithelial cancer, sarcoma means connective-tissue cancer; beware lymphoma, melanoma and glioma, which are malignant despite the -oma.
What it is: Enlargement of lymph nodes, which may be a harmless reaction to a nearby infection or a sign of a blood cancer or a spreading tumour.
π§ Memory trick: Soft, tender, mobile suggests a reaction; hard, painless, fixed and growing suggests cancer; Virchow's node points to an abdominal tumour.
What it is: The harmful reactions that can follow a blood transfusion, ranging from mild fever to a dangerous destruction of the transfused red cells.
π§ Memory trick: From fever to fatal: ABO mismatch causes acute haemolysis, cytokines and donor white cells cause fever, anti-IgA antibodies risk severe allergy; grouping and cross-matching prevent the worst.
What it is: A dangerous state in which blood flow is too low to meet the body's needs, so tissues are starved of oxygen; it has several types by cause.
π§ Memory trick: Four ways the circulation fails: Hypovolaemic (too little volume), Cardiogenic (pump fails), Distributive (vessels widen), Obstructive (flow blocked).
What it is: Changes in the number or structure of chromosomes that cause inherited syndromes and drive some cancers.
π§ Memory trick: Count and structure: trisomy 21 (Down), 18 (Edwards), 13 (Patau); 45,X (Turner), 47,XXY (Klinefelter); translocations drive CML (Philadelphia) and Burkitt.
What it is: Cell changes that can occur on the path towards cancer - one mature cell type replacing another, disordered growth, and a contained early cancer - though they do not always progress.
π§ Memory trick: Steps toward cancer: metaplasia (one cell type swaps for another), dysplasia (disordered but not invaded), carcinoma in situ (full-thickness, still above the basement membrane).
What it is: How unstable oxygen molecules called free radicals damage cells, a mechanism behind ageing, inflammation and many diseases.
π§ Memory trick: Unpaired and hungry: free radicals peroxidise membranes, break DNA and damage proteins; antioxidants (superoxide dismutase, catalase, vitamins C and E) hold them in check.
What it is: Coloured substances that build up inside cells, some made by the body and some from outside, whose pattern helps recognise disease.
π§ Memory trick: Colours tell a story: melanin (skin), lipofuscin (wear-and-tear), haemosiderin (old bleeding and iron overload), bilirubin (jaundice), carbon (anthracosis).
What it is: The death (necrosis) of body tissue from a loss of blood supply, sometimes worsened by infection, seen in three main forms.
π§ Memory trick: Dry is black, shrunken and stays put; wet is moist, foul and spreads; gas gangrene (Clostridium) crackles with gas and races through the tissue.
What it is: An abnormal, permanent bulging of a blood vessel wall (or the heart), which can leak, burst or throw off clots.
π§ Memory trick: A weakened wall balloons: true (all layers) versus false (contained leak); atherosclerosis causes the abdominal aortic aneurysm, berry aneurysms sit on the circle of Willis; rupture is the killer.
What it is: Diseases of the heart muscle itself that weaken the heart's pumping, grouped into three main patterns by how the muscle changes.
π§ Memory trick: Three heart-muscle patterns: Dilated (stretched, weak pump; alcohol/viral), Hypertrophic (thick, inherited; sudden death in athletes), Restrictive (stiff, cannot fill; amyloid).
What it is: The build-up of fat inside liver cells, the commonest liver abnormality, which can be harmless or progress to inflammation and scarring.
π§ Memory trick: Fat in the liver cells: alcohol or metabolic (obesity, diabetes); fat alone reverses, but steatohepatitis (Mallory-Denk bodies) scars towards cirrhosis.
What it is: A cancer of the plasma cells in the bone marrow, which flood the blood with one useless antibody and eat away at the bones.
π§ Memory trick: One clone, one antibody: M band in blood, Bence Jones in urine; CRAB (high Calcium, Renal failure, Anaemia, Bone lesions); rouleaux on the film.
What it is: Solid stones that form in the gallbladder from bile, which can block the flow of bile and cause pain, inflammation and jaundice.
π§ Memory trick: Cholesterol (four Fs: Female, Forty, Fat, Fertile) or pigment (haemolysis) stones; block the cystic duct (cholecystitis), the bile duct (jaundice) or the shared opening (pancreatitis).
What it is: A disease of unknown cause in which clumps of immune cells (non-caseating granulomas) form in many organs, most often the lungs and lymph nodes.
π§ Memory trick: Non-caseating granulomas everywhere (unknown cause): bilateral hilar lymphadenopathy on the chest X-ray, raised calcium and ACE; unlike TB, no caseation.
What it is: An autoimmune disease in which the body makes antibodies against its own tissues, damaging the skin, joints, kidneys and many other organs.
π§ Memory trick: Antibodies against self (especially the nucleus): immune-complex (type III) disease in young women; butterfly rash, joints, sun sensitivity, nephritis; ANA screens, anti-dsDNA is specific.
What it is: Diseases that weaken bone throughout the body by upsetting its mineral content or the balance between its building and breakdown.
π§ Memory trick: Too little bone (osteoporosis, normal minerals, post-menopausal fractures), too little mineral (osteomalacia and rickets, low vitamin D), or too fast turnover (Paget, thick but weak).
What it is: Bacterial pus-forming inflammation of the meninges covering the brain and spinal cord, a serious infection with a typical cerebrospinal fluid picture.
π§ Memory trick: Pyogenic meningitis is neutrophil pus on the brain; CSF is cloudy with high protein, LOW glucose and many neutrophils (unlike viral or TB); fever, stiff neck, photophobia.
What it is: A group of disorders of chronic high blood glucose caused by defects in insulin secretion, insulin action, or both, leading to widespread tissue damage.
π§ Memory trick: Type 1 is autoimmune beta-cell loss; type 2 is insulin resistance; high glucose harms micro (eye, kidney, nerve) and macro (heart, brain, limb) vessels.
What it is: Disorders in which fluid-filled sacs (cysts) form in the kidneys, ranging from harmless single cysts to inherited disease that destroys kidney function.
π§ Memory trick: Simple cyst is harmless; adult dominant PKD gives big cystic kidneys, hypertension, haematuria, liver cysts and berry aneurysms; recessive appears in infancy with liver fibrosis.
What it is: Cancer arising from the cells of the breast, the commonest cancer in women, classified by where it starts and by the receptors it carries.
π§ Memory trick: Breast cancer is ductal (commonest, hard gritty mass) or lobular; spreads to axilla then bone/lung/liver/brain; test ER, PR and HER2; lump, dimpling, nipple retraction.
What it is: Growths within the brain and spinal cord, which behave differently from tumours elsewhere because they are enclosed in the rigid skull.
π§ Memory trick: Adults above the tentorium, children in the posterior fossa; gliomas (glioblastoma worst), meningioma (benign, outside), metastases commonest overall; closed skull means pressure harms.
What it is: Effects of cancer felt away from the tumour itself, caused by substances it releases or by immune reactions, including severe weight loss.
π§ Memory trick: Paraneoplastic means distant effects (high calcium, low sodium/SIADH, ACTH-Cushing's, nerve antibodies); cachexia is inflammatory wasting; may be the first clue to cancer.
What it is: A tumour of the adrenal medulla that releases catecholamines, causing episodes of high blood pressure, sweating, palpitations and headache.
π§ Memory trick: Phaeochromocytoma is an adrenal-medulla tumour with an adrenaline surge: headache, sweating, palpitations, high blood pressure; rule of tens; MEN 2 and VHL; measure metanephrines.
What it is: The features of a cancer that forecast its likely outcome (prognostic) or its likely response to a particular treatment (predictive).
π§ Memory trick: Prognostic means outcome no matter what (stage strongest, then grade); predictive means response to a therapy (ER/PR, HER2, gene mutations).
What it is: What the body does to a drug over time.
π§ Memory trick: ADME β Absorption, Distribution, Metabolism, Excretion.
What it is: G-protein receptors for adrenaline/noradrenaline that drive the sympathetic response.
π§ Memory trick: Ξ²1 = 1 heart, Ξ²2 = 2 lungs.
What it is: Antibiotics grouped by their mechanism of action.
What it is: Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs that block cyclooxygenase (COX).
What it is: Drugs that reduce the blood's ability to clot.
What it is: Drugs that increase or block the action of acetylcholine.
π§ Memory trick: Cholinergic excess = SLUDGE: Salivation, Lacrimation, Urination, Defecation, GI cramps, Emesis.
What it is: Powerful anti-inflammatory and immunosuppressive drugs that mimic cortisol.
What it is: The hormone (and injectable drug) that lowers blood glucose.
What it is: Drugs that increase urine output, used in oedema and hypertension.
What it is: Cytotoxic drugs that preferentially kill rapidly dividing cells.
What it is: The drug classes used to lower high blood pressure.
What it is: Strong analgesics acting on opioid receptors (e.g. morphine).
π§ Memory trick: Opioid overdose triad: pinpoint pupils, respiratory depression, coma.
What it is: Drugs that control seizures by reducing abnormal neuronal firing.
What it is: Drugs used to lower blood glucose in diabetes mellitus.
What it is: Drugs used to treat psychosis, mainly by blocking dopamine.
What it is: What a drug does to the body - its effects and mechanisms.
π§ Memory trick: Potency = position (EC50); efficacy = ceiling (Emax).
What it is: Choosing drugs safely for a pregnant or breastfeeding patient.
π§ Memory trick: Avoid teratogens: Warfarin, ACEi, Valproate, isotretinoin, methotrexate.
What it is: Adjusting drugs when the kidney or liver cannot clear them normally.
π§ Memory trick: Failing kidney or liver -> reduce the dose of what it clears.
What it is: Using antibiotics responsibly to preserve their effectiveness.
π§ Memory trick: Right drug, right dose, right duration - review at 48-72 h.
What it is: The specific antidotes for common poisonings.
π§ Memory trick: Paracetamol-NAC, opioid-naloxone, iron-desferrioxamine - learn the pairs.
What it is: Recognising and classifying unwanted effects of drugs.
π§ Memory trick: Type A = Augmented and predictable; Type B = Bizarre and not.
What it is: The different ways a drug can be given to the body, each affecting how fast and how completely it reaches the bloodstream.
π§ Memory trick: Oral is easy but faces first-pass; intravenous is rapid but riskiest; sublingual, transdermal and rectal reduce first-pass; local routes act where they are put.
What it is: What a drug does to the body: how it binds to targets such as receptors to produce its effect, and what decides how strong that effect is.
π§ Memory trick: Drugs act on targets: agonists switch on, antagonists block; potency is how little you need, efficacy is the most you can get; a narrow therapeutic index is dangerous.
What it is: How one drug can speed up or slow down the liver enzymes that break down another drug, changing its level in the body and causing interactions.
π§ Memory trick: Inducers speed up and lower levels (slow, needs new enzyme); inhibitors block and raise levels (fast, from the start); grapefruit inhibits gut enzymes.
What it is: How one drug can change the effect of another when they are taken together, sometimes helpfully but often causing harm.
π§ Memory trick: Two routes to interact: pharmacokinetic (change the level, e.g. block metabolism) and pharmacodynamic (change the effect, add or cancel at the target); riskiest with narrow-margin drugs.
What it is: The many things about a person and their situation that change how a drug affects them, so the same amount can act differently in different people.
π§ Memory trick: Same drug, different people: size and age, liver and kidney health, genetics, pregnancy, other drugs and tolerance all change the response.
What it is: The staged process of testing a new drug for safety and effectiveness, from the laboratory through phases of human trials before it can be used.
π§ Memory trick: Lab to market: preclinical, then Phase I (safety, healthy), II (does it work, patients), III (large, controlled), then approval and IV (post-marketing watch).
What it is: How drugs act at the adrenaline (adrenergic) receptors, which control the heart, blood vessels and airways, by switching them on or blocking them.
π§ Memory trick: Alpha-1 narrows vessels, beta-1 drives the heart, beta-2 opens the airways: block alpha-1 to lower pressure, block beta-1 to slow the heart, agonise beta-2 to open the airways.
What it is: How repeated use of a drug can lead the body to need more for the same effect, to depend on it, and sometimes to compulsive use.
π§ Memory trick: Need more (tolerance), body adapts (physical dependence, withdrawal on stopping), mind craves (psychological dependence), compulsive despite harm (addiction).
What it is: Drugs used against the malaria parasite, which act at different stages of its life cycle inside the red cells and the liver.
π§ Memory trick: Chloroquine blocks haemozoin, artemisinins burn with free radicals, primaquine clears sleeping liver hypnozoites (beware G6PD).
What it is: Drugs that raise dopamine activity (and reduce the relative cholinergic activity) in the brain to relieve the stiffness, tremor and slowness of Parkinson's disease.
π§ Memory trick: Levodopa + carbidopa feeds dopamine; agonists mimic it; MAO-B and COMT save it; antimuscarinics cut the cholinergic excess; beware wearing-off and dyskinesia.
What it is: Drugs that kill the slow-growing tuberculosis bacillus, used together in combinations to prevent resistance.
π§ Memory trick: RIPE targets: Rifampicin (RNA polymerase, orange fluids), Isoniazid (mycolic acid, neuropathy), Pyrazinamide (acidic macrophage), Ethambutol (eye, arabinosyl transferase).
What it is: A large family of beta-lactam antibiotics, grouped into generations that broadly shift from Gram-positive cover towards Gram-negative and hospital organisms.
π§ Memory trick: Climb the generations: Gram-positive down, Gram-negative up; third crosses into CSF, ceftazidime hits Pseudomonas, ceftaroline hits MRSA.
What it is: Drugs that correct abnormal heart rhythms, classically grouped by the ion channel or receptor they act on.
π§ Memory trick: Some Block Potassium Channels: class I Sodium, II Beta-blockers, III Potassium, IV Calcium; all can be proarrhythmic.
What it is: Drugs that relieve depression mainly by raising the levels of the monoamine transmitters serotonin and noradrenaline at brain synapses.
π§ Memory trick: SSRIs block the serotonin pump (safer), TCAs block two pumps and three receptors (toxic), MAOIs beware cheese; too much serotonin gives serotonin syndrome.
What it is: Inhaled and oral drugs that open the airways and calm airway inflammation in asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
π§ Memory trick: Relievers open (beta-2 agonists, antimuscarinics), preventers calm (inhaled steroids, leukotriene blockers); theophylline is the old add-on.
What it is: Drugs that calm and promote sleep, mostly by enhancing the action of the brain's main inhibitory transmitter, GABA.
π§ Memory trick: Benzodiazepines set the frequency of chloride opening (safer, ceiling); barbiturates set the duration (deadly breathing depression); flumazenil reverses benzodiazepines.
What it is: Drugs that replace thyroid hormone when it is lacking, and drugs that reduce its production when it is in excess.
π§ Memory trick: Underactive means replace with levothyroxine; overactive means block hormone building (carbimazole, propylthiouracil; PTU also blocks T4 to T3), ablate with radioactive iodine, ease symptoms with beta-blockers; watch for agranulocytosis.
What it is: The female sex hormones oestrogen and progesterone, and how they are used in pills that prevent pregnancy.
π§ Memory trick: The combined pill is oestrogen plus progestogen, mainly stopping ovulation (also thick mucus, thin lining); the progestogen-only pill avoids oestrogen; oestrogen raises clot risk, worse in smokers.
What it is: Drugs that heal and prevent stomach and duodenal ulcers by reducing acid or protecting the lining.
π§ Memory trick: Lower the acid: proton pump inhibitors block the acid pump (strongest), H2 blockers block histamine; antacids neutralise; sucralfate and bismuth coat; clear H. pylori with antibiotics plus an acid blocker.
What it is: Drugs that lower the raised pressure inside the eye in glaucoma, either by making less fluid or by draining more.
π§ Memory trick: Lower the eye pressure by making less fluid (timolol, carbonic anhydrase inhibitors) or draining more (latanoprost; pilocarpine opens the angle).
What it is: The large family of antibiotics built around the beta-lactam ring, which kill bacteria by wrecking their cell wall.
π§ Memory trick: Beta-lactams wreck the cell wall (kill growing bacteria, spare human cells); beta-lactamase resists them, so add clavulanic acid; the main harm is allergy, rarely anaphylaxis.
What it is: Drugs that damp down the immune system to prevent transplant rejection and to treat diseases where immunity attacks the body.
π§ Memory trick: Immunosuppressants: calcineurin inhibitors (ciclosporin, tacrolimus) block T-cell signalling; steroids broadly damp; azathioprine and mycophenolate stop cell multiplication; biologics target messengers; all raise infection risk.
What it is: Drugs that produce a reversible loss of consciousness and sensation for surgery, given as gases to breathe or injected into a vein.
π§ Memory trick: General anaesthetics give reversible unconsciousness; inhaled (sevoflurane, older halothane, weak nitrous oxide) or intravenous (propofol, thiopental); intravenous sends to sleep, inhaled keeps asleep; balanced anaesthesia; beware malignant hyperthermia.
What it is: Drugs that prevent or relieve nausea and vomiting, chosen according to the cause of the sickness.
π§ Memory trick: Motion sickness uses antihistamines and hyoscine (inner ear); metoclopramide (dopamine; brain and gut); ondansetron (5-HT3) for chemotherapy and after surgery; combine different pathways if needed.
What it is: Drugs that relieve the chest pain of angina by widening blood vessels and easing the heart's workload.
π§ Memory trick: Angina is supply below demand; nitrates release nitric oxide to widen veins and cut preload, so the heart needs less oxygen; beta-blockers and rate-slowing calcium blockers cut demand; beware nitrate tolerance.
What it is: Drugs that relieve symptoms and prolong life in a failing heart by reducing its workload and controlling fluid overload.
π§ Memory trick: A failing heart holds salt and water and is overworked; ACE inhibitors, ARBs and beta-blockers improve survival; diuretics relieve congestion; digoxin boosts force (blocks the Na/K pump; narrow margin).
What it is: Drugs that make platelets less sticky to prevent the clots that cause heart attacks and strokes.
π§ Memory trick: Antiplatelets stop artery clots; aspirin irreversibly blocks cyclo-oxygenase, so no thromboxane (lasting the platelet's week-long life); clopidogrel blocks the ADP receptor; the main harm is bleeding.
What it is: Drugs that kill single-celled parasites and anaerobic bacteria, with metronidazole the best-known example.
π§ Memory trick: Metronidazole is activated inside anaerobes and damages their DNA; it hits anaerobic bacteria plus amoeba, giardia and trichomonas; a disulfiram reaction with alcohol; metallic taste and neuropathy with long use.
What it is: Drugs that block the muscarinic actions of acetylcholine, used to dry secretions, relax smooth muscle and speed the heart.
π§ Memory trick: Antimuscarinics (atropine) block muscarinic receptors and oppose the parasympathetic system: fast heart, big pupils, dry, relaxed gut and bladder; toxidrome is dry, red, hot, blind and mad.
What it is: Drugs that slow the joint damage of rheumatoid arthritis by damping the overactive immune process, not just easing pain.
π§ Memory trick: DMARDs slow joint damage (not just pain): methotrexate is the anchor (blocks folate and immune-cell multiplication); plus sulfasalazine, leflunomide and hydroxychloroquine; biologics block TNF; all raise infection risk.
What it is: Fluids given into a vein to restore blood volume and to correct the body's water and salt balance.
π§ Memory trick: Intravenous fluids restore volume, water and salts: crystalloids (saline, Ringer's) spread widely; colloids and plasma expanders stay in the vessels; dextrose gives water; too much floods the lungs.
What it is: The use of drugs to prevent a disease in a person who is at risk but not yet ill.
π§ Memory trick: Chemoprophylaxis is drugs to prevent, not treat: malaria in travellers, contacts of infections, and preventing the return of rheumatic fever; needs a safe, effective, reliably taken drug; overuse breeds resistance.
What it is: Drugs used to stop a migraine attack once it starts, and others taken regularly to make attacks less frequent.
π§ Memory trick: Migraine drugs are acute (triptans narrow vessels via serotonin, plus pain-killers and anti-sickness) or preventive (some beta-blockers, antiepileptics, antidepressants); overusing pain-killers causes a rebound headache.
What it is: Drugs that lower blood cholesterol to reduce the fatty build-up in arteries and the risk of heart attacks and strokes.
π§ Memory trick: Statins block HMG-CoA reductase (cholesterol's rate-limiting step) so the liver clears more LDL; the mainstay of cardiovascular risk reduction; watch for muscle aches and myopathy; ezetimibe blocks gut absorption and fibrates lower triglycerides.
What it is: Drugs that block the actions of histamine, a chemical released in allergy, used for itch, hay fever and hives.
π§ Memory trick: Histamine (from mast cells) acts on H1 (itch, swelling, redness) and H2 (stomach acid); H1 blockers treat allergy (old ones sedate, new ones do not); H2 blockers cut acid; antihistamines do NOT replace adrenaline in anaphylaxis.
What it is: Drugs that kill or stop fungi, targeting parts of the fungal cell that human cells do not have.
π§ Memory trick: Antifungals hit the fungal membrane or wall: azoles block ergosterol synthesis; amphotericin binds ergosterol and punches holes (kidney harm); terbinafine for nails and skin; nystatin for surface thrush; griseofulvin for scalp ringworm.
What it is: Drugs that rid the body of worms by paralysing them or starving them of energy so that they are passed out.
π§ Memory trick: Anthelmintics expel worms: albendazole and mebendazole starve them (block glucose uptake); pyrantel and piperazine paralyse them; praziquantel for flukes and tapeworms; diethylcarbamazine and ivermectin for filariasis.
What it is: Drugs that block beta-adrenergic receptors, slowing the heart and reducing its force, used in many heart conditions.
π§ Memory trick: Beta-blockers oppose adrenaline: blocking beta-1 in the heart slows the rate, cuts force and lowers oxygen need (angina, post-heart-attack, arrhythmias, heart failure, high blood pressure); non-selective ones narrow airways (avoid in asthma); do not stop suddenly.
What it is: Drugs that stop viruses from multiplying by blocking steps in their life cycle, since viruses use the host's own cells.
π§ Memory trick: Antivirals block a viral step inside host cells: aciclovir (activated in herpes-infected cells, blocks viral DNA); oseltamivir (blocks influenza neuraminidase, so the virus cannot spread); HIV needs combinations (reverse transcriptase, protease); resistance drives combination use.
What it is: Drugs that block the entry of calcium into muscle cells, relaxing blood vessels and, for some, slowing the heart.
π§ Memory trick: Calcium channel blockers stop calcium entering heart and vessel muscle: dihydropyridines (amlodipine) relax vessels (blood pressure); verapamil and diltiazem slow the heart and the AV node (rhythm, angina); dihydropyridines cause ankle swelling, verapamil causes constipation.
What it is: A differential stain that classifies bacteria by their cell-wall structure.
What it is: Exaggerated or inappropriate immune responses, classified Types IβIV.
π§ Memory trick: ACID β Anaphylactic, Cytotoxic, Immune-complex, Delayed.
What it is: The acid-fast bacillus that causes tuberculosis.
π§ Memory trick: Anti-TB drugs = RIPE: Rifampicin, Isoniazid, Pyrazinamide, Ethambutol.
What it is: A protozoal disease caused by Plasmodium, spread by the female Anopheles mosquito.
What it is: The two major groups of Gram-positive cocci, told apart at the bench.
What it is: The five antibody classes and their distinct roles.
π§ Memory trick: The classes spell GAMED: IgG, IgA, IgM, IgE, IgD.
What it is: Two different levels of removing microbes from instruments and surfaces.
What it is: Inflammation of the liver caused by hepatitis viruses A to E.
π§ Memory trick: Vowels hit the bowels: hepatitis A & E are faeco-oral.
What it is: A retrovirus that destroys CD4 T-cells, causing progressive immunodeficiency.
What it is: When microbes evolve to survive drugs that once killed them.
What it is: Preparations that stimulate protective immunity against a pathogen.
What it is: A systemic infection by Salmonella Typhi or Paratyphi spread by the faeco-oral route.
π§ Memory trick: Typhoid: stepladder fever + relative bradycardia + rose spots.
What it is: A mosquito-borne flavivirus infection transmitted by Aedes aegypti.
π§ Memory trick: Dengue = break-bone fever; watch platelets and haematocrit.
What it is: Diseases caused by spore-forming anaerobic Clostridium species.
π§ Memory trick: Tetani rigid, botulinum floppy, perfringens gas, difficile diarrhoea.
What it is: Interpreting the blood markers of hepatitis B infection.
π§ Memory trick: sAg = infection, anti-s = immunity, anti-c = exposure, eAg = infectious.
What it is: A near-universally fatal viral encephalitis transmitted by animal bites.
π§ Memory trick: Rabies: wash the wound at once, give the vaccine, and add immunoglobulin when the exposure category indicates it.
What it is: Approaching fever after recent foreign travel.
π§ Memory trick: Fever + travel = exclude malaria first.
What it is: Infections acquired during healthcare that were not present on admission.
π§ Memory trick: Hand hygiene is the best defence against hospital infections.
What it is: Using cerebrospinal fluid results to identify the type of meningitis.
π§ Memory trick: Bacteria eat glucose - low CSF glucose points to bacterial or TB meningitis.
What it is: The immediate steps after a sharps or body-fluid exposure.
π§ Memory trick: Wash, assess the source, and start PEP early if needed.
What it is: The study of fungi that cause human disease, which range from surface skin infections to life-threatening infections in people with weak immunity.
π§ Memory trick: Yeasts, moulds and shape-shifters: dermatophytes and Candida stay superficial, while Cryptococcus and Aspergillus turn dangerous when immunity is low.
What it is: The two great groups of viruses, classified by whether their genetic material is DNA or RNA, which shapes how they copy themselves and cause disease.
π§ Memory trick: DNA viruses: mostly double-stranded, copy in the nucleus (herpes, HBV, HPV; pox is cytoplasmic); RNA viruses: mutate fast, mostly cytoplasmic (measles, polio, HIV; flu is nuclear).
What it is: The parts that make up a bacterial cell and the way bacteria multiply, which explain how they cause disease and how we can kill them.
π§ Memory trick: Wall, extras, spores: peptidoglycan sets the Gram colour, capsule, flagella and pili add tricks, and spores survive to defeat weak sterilisation.
What it is: The parasitic worms that infect humans, divided into flatworms and roundworms, which cause much disease worldwide, especially where sanitation is poor.
π§ Memory trick: Flat versus round: tapeworms and flukes are flatworms, nematodes are roundworms; suspect worms when eosinophils rise, and hunt for eggs in the stool.
What it is: A cascade of blood proteins that helps the immune system destroy microbes by tagging them, punching holes in them and calling in inflammation.
π§ Memory trick: Three routes, one C3: classical (antibody), lectin (mannose) and alternative (surfaces) all split C3, leading to opsonisation, inflammation and the membrane attack complex.
What it is: A group of unusual bacteria that are hard to see or grow by ordinary methods, and that cause diseases such as syphilis, typhus and atypical pneumonia.
π§ Memory trick: The awkward squad: Spirochaetes coil (syphilis, Lyme), Mycoplasma has no wall (walking pneumonia), and Rickettsia and Chlamydia hide inside cells (typhus; trachoma).
What it is: A large family of gram-negative rods living in the gut, including harmless residents and important causes of diarrhoea, urine and bloodstream infections.
π§ Memory trick: Gut gram-negative rods: lactose-fermenting E. coli (pink on MacConkey) versus non-fermenting Salmonella and Shigella; Vibrio is the comma that causes cholera.
What it is: Single-celled eukaryotic organisms, many of which are parasitic and cause human disease, spread through contaminated food and water, insect bites or sexual contact.
π§ Memory trick: One-celled parasites by route: Entamoeba and Giardia from food and water, Leishmania and trypanosomes from insect bites, Trichomonas from sex.
What it is: The slow-growing acid-fast bacterium that causes leprosy, a chronic infection of the skin and nerves that can lead to deformity if not recognised.
π§ Memory trick: Slow, cool-loving, nerve-seeking acid-fast rod: strong immunity gives tuberculoid (few patches), weak gives lepromatous (many bacilli); nerve damage brings painless injury.
What it is: A set of cell-surface molecules, called HLA in humans, that display fragments of proteins to the immune system and strongly influence transplant compatibility.
π§ Memory trick: Self-display for T cells: MHC I (all cells) to cytotoxic T cells, MHC II (immune cells) to helper T cells; highly polymorphic genes guide transplant matching (HLA-B27 with ankylosing spondylitis).
What it is: The nutrient jellies and broths used to grow microbes in the laboratory, and the main ways bacteria are identified from a specimen.
π§ Memory trick: Grow, then identify: enriched, selective and differential media (MacConkey for gram-negatives); then Gram stain, oxygen need and biochemical tests, or fast gene detection.
What it is: A group of rod-shaped gram-positive bacteria whose powerful toxins cause diphtheria, anthrax, tetanus, botulism and gas gangrene.
π§ Memory trick: Toxin-makers: Corynebacterium (diphtheria, false membrane), Bacillus anthracis (anthrax spores), Clostridium (tetanus locks, botulism flops, perfringens gas gangrene).
What it is: A disease caused by Leishmania parasites, spread by sandflies, ranging from skin sores to a deadly disease of the internal organs.
π§ Memory trick: Leishmaniasis (Leishmania, sandfly): visceral (kala-azar) is long fever, a huge spleen and liver, weight loss, dark skin and low blood counts (fatal untreated); cutaneous is an ulcerating skin sore healing with a scar; amastigotes (Leishman-Donovan bodies) sit in macrophages.
What it is: The sequence of changes after death, used to estimate the time since death.
π§ Memory trick: The three 'mortis': Algor (cooling), Livor (colour), Rigor (rigidity).
What it is: Wounds classified by mechanism β central to medico-legal reporting.
What it is: Death from interference with the body's oxygen supply.
What it is: Bluish-purple discolouration where blood settles under gravity after death.
What it is: A postmortem examination to establish the cause and manner of death.
What it is: Wounds produced by projectiles fired from firearms.
π§ Memory trick: Entry = small + abrasion collar; exit = large + everted.
What it is: The general approach to a poisoned patient.
π§ Memory trick: Resuscitate, Reduce absorption, antidote, Remove (eliminate).
What it is: The legal duties of consent and the standard of care.
π§ Memory trick: Negligence = Duty, Dereliction, Direct causation, Damage (4 Ds).
What it is: Establishing who a deceased person is.
π§ Memory trick: Primary ID = fingerprints, dental, DNA.
What it is: Completing the death certificate accurately and lawfully.
π§ Memory trick: The underlying cause goes at the bottom of Part I.
What it is: The sensitive, consented and meticulous examination of an alleged assault survivor.
π§ Memory trick: Care first, evidence second - and never break the chain of custody.
What it is: Estimating age from teeth and bone for medico-legal purposes.
π§ Memory trick: Teeth and bones reveal age - but only within a range.
What it is: Poisoning by metals such as lead, arsenic and mercury, which build up in the body and damage the nerves, gut and other organs.
π§ Memory trick: Metals that maim: Lead (colic, anaemia, gum line, wrist drop), Arsenic (watery stools, homicidal), Mercury (nerves, kidney, Minamata); found in hair, nails and bone.
What it is: Poisoning by strong acids or alkalis that burn and destroy the tissues they touch, chiefly the mouth, food pipe and stomach.
π§ Memory trick: Acids coagulate (hard eschar, hit the stomach); alkalis liquefy (soft, deep, hit the food pipe); both can perforate acutely and stricture later.
What it is: Plants that contain natural poisons dangerous to humans, some used in traditional practice, crime or self-harm, each with tell-tale effects.
π§ Memory trick: Plant poisons: Datura (anticholinergic delirium), oleander (heart), Abrus/abrin (cattle poison), aconite (numb then heart), strychnine (convulsions and arching).
What it is: Poisoning by the colourless, odourless gas carbon monoxide, which starves the tissues of oxygen by taking its place on haemoglobin.
π§ Memory trick: Silent gas, oxygen thief: carbon monoxide binds haemoglobin tightly (carboxyhaemoglobin), starves the tissues, gives a cherry-red colour, and is confirmed by the blood level.
What it is: Poisoning by methanol (wood alcohol), often from illicit liquor, which is turned in the body into acids that cause blindness and can kill.
π§ Memory trick: Wood alcohol turns to acid: methanol becomes formic acid after a delay, causing a metabolic acidosis and optic-nerve damage (blindness); often from illicit liquor.
What it is: Poisoning by organophosphate insecticides, which block the enzyme that switches off nerve signals, flooding the body with acetylcholine.
π§ Memory trick: Acetylcholine floods: organophosphates block cholinesterase, giving SLUDGE (muscarinic), twitching and weakness (nicotinic) and fits (central); low blood cholinesterase supports it.
What it is: Substances taken for their pleasurable or mind-altering effects, which can cause dependence, overdose and death, and are important in forensic work.
π§ Memory trick: Down, up or altered: depressants (opioids, alcohol; pinpoint pupils, slow breathing), stimulants (cocaine; wide pupils, fast heart), hallucinogens; detected in blood, urine and hair.
What it is: An official legal inquiry into a death that is sudden, suspicious or unnatural, held to find out who died and how, when and where.
π§ Memory trick: Legal inquiry into an unnatural death (who, how, when, where, not guilt): police inquest usually, magistrate's inquest for custody and dowry deaths; coroner or medical examiner elsewhere.
What it is: Injury and poisoning from snake venom, which is broadly either neurotoxic or vasculotoxic depending on the snake.
π§ Memory trick: Cobra and krait are Neurotoxic (ptosis, paralysis); vipers are Vasculotoxic (bleeding, swelling, necrosis); krait bites are painless in sleep.
What it is: A rapidly acting poison that stops cells from using oxygen, so the tissues suffocate even though the blood is well oxygenated.
π§ Memory trick: Cyanide chokes cytochrome oxidase: cells starve of oxygen; classic but unreliable clues are bright-red blood, bitter-almond breath and pink skin; rapid collapse.
What it is: Poisoning by barbiturate sedatives, which deeply depress the brain and breathing and were once a common means of suicide.
π§ Memory trick: Barbiturates: coma, slow breathing, low blood pressure, low temperature, pressure-area blisters; death by respiratory failure; narrow safety margin.
What it is: The Indian law that sets out when and by whom a pregnancy may be lawfully ended, and that protects a registered doctor who acts within it.
π§ Memory trick: MTP Act: lawful grounds (life or health, fetal abnormality, rape, contraceptive failure), consent of the woman, more doctors as pregnancy advances, confidentiality.
What it is: The role a doctor plays when giving evidence in court, and the kinds of witness and evidence that the law recognises.
π§ Memory trick: Fact versus expert witness; hostile hides the truth; chief then cross then re-examination; dying declaration admissible; conduct money for attendance.
What it is: A pattern of repeated physical abuse of a young child by a carer, recognised from injuries of different ages that do not match the account given.
π§ Memory trick: Battered baby: injuries of different ages, a story that does not fit, suspicious fractures and burns, retinal and subdural bleeds; record and report.
What it is: The wound features that help decide whether an injury was self-inflicted, caused by another person, or accidental.
π§ Memory trick: Suicide: accessible site plus hesitation cuts; homicide: multiple, deep, any site plus defence wounds; accident: fits the story.
What it is: The legal grading of bodily injury into simple and grievous hurt, which decides the seriousness of the offence.
π§ Memory trick: Grievous is the listed serious harm (limb, sight, hearing, face, fracture, danger to life, long incapacity); everything else is simple hurt.
What it is: Two forms of pressure on the neck that block breathing and blood flow; hanging uses the body's own weight, while strangulation uses another force.
π§ Memory trick: Hanging uses body weight, mark high, slanting, rising to the knot; ligature strangulation mark is low and horizontal; throttling gives bruises and nail marks; the manner of death needs the full context, not the mark alone.
What it is: The effects of drinking ethanol on the body and behaviour, and how these matter in law, especially for driving.
π§ Memory trick: Ethanol depresses the brain (judgement, then speech, then balance, then coma); steady liver breakdown; a legal driving limit; prove by smell, behaviour and blood/breath/urine; key in road deaths and assaults.
What it is: The bodily changes that show a woman has given birth recently, used in medicolegal questions such as a concealed birth.
π§ Memory trick: Recent delivery: breasts with colostrum and darker nipples; an enlarged, shrinking womb with lochia; vaginal stretching and tears; stretch marks and a dark midline; used in concealed-birth cases.
What it is: The unlawful ending of a pregnancy outside the protection of the law, often done unsafely, with serious medicolegal importance.
π§ Memory trick: Criminal abortion is unlawful ending outside the law, often unsafe and without medical safeguards; complications are bleeding, infection, injury, air embolism and death; document factually.
What it is: The patterns of ridges on the fingertips, which are unique to each person and unchanging, making them a powerful means of identification.
π§ Memory trick: Fingerprints are friction ridges, formed before birth, unique and unchanging; patterns are loops, whorls and arches (dactylography); even twins differ; prints may be visible, moulded or latent.
What it is: The body that registers doctors and sets the standards of professional conduct, and what happens when those standards are broken.
π§ Memory trick: The medical council keeps the register and sets conduct standards; only the registered may practise; misconduct (false certificates, breach of confidence) can lead to a warning or removal from the register.
What it is: The findings that show whether a newborn was born alive and breathed, central to the medicolegal question of infanticide.
π§ Memory trick: Live birth means the baby breathed: lungs expanded and aerated; the hydrostatic test floats breathed lungs and sinks unbreathed ones (but decomposition or revival attempts mislead); check the cord and air in the gut.
What it is: Death from natural disease that happens unexpectedly and quickly in someone who seemed well, a common reason for a medicolegal autopsy.
π§ Memory trick: Sudden natural death is disease not injury, quick and unexpected; heart disease commonest (coronary leads to a fatal rhythm); also brain bleed, aneurysm, asthma, epilepsy and infection; autopsy excludes foul play.
What it is: The features that tell whether a wound was made during life or after death, a key question in forensic examination.
π§ Memory trick: Antemortem wounds show a vital reaction (bleeding, swelling, clotting, inflammation, healing); postmortem wounds show little bleeding or reaction; the distinction reveals whether injury came before or after death.
What it is: The medicolegal assessment of whether a woman is a virgin, and why the signs are not by themselves proof.
π§ Memory trick: Virginity means no intercourse; an intact hymen suggests but does not prove it (it can tear from other causes and may survive intercourse); defloration is a hymen tear; report factually and avoid overclaiming.
What it is: The methods used to estimate how long ago a person died, based on the changes that follow death.
π§ Memory trick: Time since death comes from postmortem changes (all approximate): cooling (algor), stiffening (rigor, hours to about a day), pooling (livor); plus stomach contents, decomposition and insects for longer gaps.
What it is: Forms of asphyxia in which breathing is prevented by chest compression or by risky solitary behaviour, rather than by a ligature pulled by another.
π§ Memory trick: Traumatic asphyxia is a chest crush giving blue-purple head and neck congestion with pinpoint bleeds; autoerotic asphyxia is accidental solitary breath-limiting (padding and a failed escape point to accident).
What it is: Incised wounds of the neck, whose features help to decide whether they were self-inflicted, homicidal or accidental.
π§ Memory trick: Cut-throat: suicidal is high, slanting from one upper side, with hesitation cuts; homicidal is low, deep and horizontal with defence wounds; death from bleeding, air embolism or a blocked airway.
What it is: Wounds caused by shotguns, which fire many small pellets, giving a pattern that changes with the range of firing.
π§ Memory trick: A shotgun fires many pellets that spread with range: close range gives a single hole with scorching and soot; farther gives separate pellet holes; the pattern estimates range; wadding in the wound identifies the weapon.
What it is: The placing of semen into a woman by means other than intercourse to achieve pregnancy, and the legal issues it raises.
π§ Memory trick: Artificial insemination places semen by medical means: the husband's (AIH) or a donor's (AID); it needs consent and donor confidentiality; it raises legitimacy and inheritance questions; keep clear records.
What it is: Injuries from heat, flame or hot liquids, and the forensic questions of how they were caused and whether they happened before or after death.
π§ Memory trick: A burn is dry heat or flame, a scald is hot liquid or steam; a vital reaction (red fluid-filled blisters) shows burning during life; soot in the airway and carbon monoxide mean alive in the fire; the pattern separates accident, suicide and homicide.
What it is: The classic model of disease causation and its use in outbreak control.
What it is: Interventions applied at different points along the natural history of disease.
What it is: Terms describing how much disease is present in a population.
What it is: Testing apparently healthy people to detect disease early.
What it is: Measures of how well a diagnostic test performs.
π§ Memory trick: SnNOut & SpPIn: Sensitive-Negative rules Out; Specific-Positive rules In.
What it is: The main designs used to study disease and its causes.
π§ Memory trick: Cohort = exposure first; case-control = disease first.
What it is: Quantifying how much disease is present in a population.
π§ Memory trick: Incidence = New; Prevalence = all existing.
What it is: Systematic errors that distort the results of a study.
π§ Memory trick: Bias = wrong measurement/selection; confounding = a hidden third factor.
What it is: Indirect protection of a population when a high proportion is immune.
π§ Memory trick: High coverage protects the whole herd - even the unvaccinated.
What it is: The stepwise public-health response to a suspected outbreak.
π§ Memory trick: The epidemic curve hints at the source - point, continuous or propagated.
What it is: Mandatory reporting of certain diseases to enable public-health action.
π§ Memory trick: Notify on suspicion - surveillance turns data into action.
What it is: The measures that describe a population's births, deaths and structure.
π§ Memory trick: Infant and maternal mortality are the health thermometers of a nation.
What it is: The numbers that show how strongly an exposure is linked to a disease and how much of the disease it accounts for, used to weigh risks.
π§ Memory trick: Relative risk = how many times more likely (strength of link); attributable risk = how much extra is due to the exposure (what prevention could remove); odds ratio for case-control.
What it is: Statistical tests that judge whether a difference found in a study is likely to be real or could easily have arisen by chance.
π§ Memory trick: How likely is a result this extreme if the null were true? That is the p-value; below 0.05 (by convention), reject the null. t-test for two means, ANOVA for more, chi-square for categories; significant is not the same as important.
What it is: The ways of choosing a smaller group to study so that it fairly represents the whole population, letting findings be generalised.
π§ Memory trick: Represent the whole: random (simple, systematic, stratified, cluster) gives everyone a known chance; convenience sampling is easy but biased.
What it is: How measurements spread out, summarised by an average and a spread, with the bell-shaped normal curve as the most important pattern.
π§ Memory trick: Middle and spread: mean, median (best for skew), mode; the normal bell curve is symmetrical, with about 95 percent of values within two standard deviations of the mean.
What it is: The safe handling and disposal of waste generated by hospitals and clinics, sorted by colour-coded bins to protect people and the environment.
π§ Memory trick: Segregate at source by colour: yellow (infectious/anatomical), red (plastics), white (sharps), blue (glass/metal), black (general); it protects staff and the environment.
What it is: The different ways an infectious agent passes from its source to a new host, which shape how each disease spreads and is prevented.
π§ Memory trick: Source to host by a route: direct (contact, droplets, sex, placenta), indirect (vehicle, food, water, air), or vector-borne; break the chain of infection to control it.
What it is: The ways of measuring whether a person or a community is well nourished, using body measurements, blood tests, clinical signs and diet history.
π§ Memory trick: ABCD of nutrition: Anthropometry (weight, height, BMI, arm circumference), Biochemical (blood tests), Clinical (signs of deficiency), Dietary (what is eaten).
What it is: The ways of preventing diseases spread by insects and other vectors, by attacking the vector, protecting people, or both.
π§ Memory trick: Attack the vector and protect the person: source reduction, larvicides and insecticides against the vector; nets, repellents and screening for people; combine methods (integrated management).
What it is: How epidemiologists decide whether a link between an exposure and a disease is true cause-and-effect or merely a chance or indirect connection.
π§ Memory trick: Association is not causation: first exclude chance, bias and confounding; then weigh strength, consistency, dose-response, plausibility, and above all temporality (cause before effect).
What it is: A diet that supplies all the nutrients the body needs in the right amounts and proportions, from energy-giving foods to vitamins and minerals.
π§ Memory trick: Energy from carbohydrate and fat, building from protein, plus vitamins, minerals and fibre: a balanced diet supplies all nutrients in the right proportions.
What it is: The range of harms caused by too little iodine in the diet, from goitre in adults to serious brain damage in the developing baby.
π§ Memory trick: Too little iodine, too little thyroid hormone: goitre in adults, congenital hypothyroidism (brain damage) in the baby; a leading preventable brain damage, fixed by iodised salt.
What it is: The study of how work can harm health and how to prevent it, including the lung and other diseases caused by particular jobs.
π§ Memory trick: Work can harm: dusts scar the lungs (silicosis, coal, asbestos, which also causes cancer and mesothelioma); plus noise, vibration, heat, chemicals and infection; prevent at the source first.
What it is: How harmful substances in the air we breathe, indoors and outdoors, damage health, especially the lungs and heart.
π§ Memory trick: Dirty air, sick lungs and heart: outdoor (particulates, sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, ozone) and indoor (cooking smoke); fine particles are worst; cleaner fuels and ventilation help.
What it is: Why clean water and the safe disposal of human waste are among the most important public-health measures for preventing disease.
π§ Memory trick: Clean water in, waste safely out: contaminated water spreads cholera, typhoid and hepatitis A (faecal-oral); coliforms flag contamination; sanitation breaks the cycle.
What it is: The planned use of information and teaching to help people make healthy choices and change harmful behaviours.
π§ Memory trick: Inform, motivate, enable: teach individuals, groups and communities; simple, repeated, culturally-fitting messages from a trusted source; move people from awareness to a lasting habit.
What it is: The system of keeping vaccines cold from the factory to the person, so they stay effective; a break in it can spoil them.
π§ Memory trick: Keep vaccines cold from factory to arm: a broken cold chain silently spoils them; use fridges, cold boxes and carriers, and watch the vaccine vial monitor.
What it is: The branch of public health that protects the health of mothers and children, who are a large and vulnerable part of the population.
π§ Memory trick: MCH covers antenatal care (check-ups, tetanus, iron-folate), safe delivery, newborn care, child growth with immunisation and breastfeeding, and family planning to space births.
What it is: The planned list of vaccines given to children at set ages to protect them against common dangerous infections.
π§ Memory trick: The schedule gives the right vaccine at the right age: birth is BCG, oral polio and hepatitis B; infancy adds diphtheria-pertussis-tetanus, Haemophilus and polio; then measles and boosters; keep the cold chain.
What it is: India's public-health programme to find and cure tuberculosis and to cut its spread, using free diagnosis and supervised treatment.
π§ Memory trick: Find early and cure fully: free diagnosis, supported treatment to ensure adherence, molecular tests for resistance, completing the course to stop drug resistance, and contact tracing.
What it is: Diseases that result from a lack of specific vitamins or minerals in the diet, common where diets are poor or unbalanced.
π§ Memory trick: A gives night blindness; D gives rickets and osteomalacia; C gives scurvy; B1 beriberi, B3 pellagra, B12 or folate anaemia; iron gives anaemia; iodine gives goitre.
What it is: Infections spread by drinking contaminated water or eating contaminated food, a major cause of diarrhoea and outbreaks.
π§ Memory trick: Faecal-oral route: water-borne means cholera, typhoid and hepatitis A and E; food-borne means food poisoning; prevent with safe water, sanitation, food hygiene and handwashing.
What it is: Essential health care made available to all in the community at a cost they and the country can afford, the foundation of a health system.
π§ Memory trick: Primary health care (Alma-Ata 1978) is essential, close to home and affordable, aiming at health for all; equity, community, appropriate technology and intersectoral action; sub-centre to PHC to CHC.
What it is: Methods that reduce or remove germs from objects and surfaces to prevent the spread of infection.
π§ Memory trick: Sterilisation kills everything including spores (autoclave is steam under pressure); disinfection kills most germs; antiseptic is safe on skin; match the method to the risk.
What it is: Anaemia caused by a lack of the nutrients needed to make red blood cells, chiefly iron, and the public-health measures against it.
π§ Memory trick: Nutritional anaemia is mainly iron lack (also folate and B12); worst in children and pregnant or menstruating women; control by diet, iron-folate, fortification and deworming.
What it is: A spectrum of acute coronary syndromes caused by a sudden reduction in coronary blood flow, including unstable angina, NSTEMI and STEMI.
What it is: An acute, life-threatening complication of insulin deficiency.
What it is: The heart is unable to pump enough blood to meet the body's needs.
What it is: An acute focal neurological deficit from interrupted blood flow to the brain.
π§ Memory trick: FAST β Face droop, Arm weakness, Speech difficulty, Time to call for help.
What it is: Two common obstructive airway diseases that both cause wheeze and breathlessness.
What it is: A reduction in haemoglobin or red-cell mass below normal.
What it is: Persistently raised arterial blood pressure β the 'silent killer'.
What it is: Chronic high blood glucose from insulin deficiency and/or resistance.
What it is: An under-active versus over-active thyroid gland.
What it is: A progressive, irreversible decline in kidney function.
What it is: Life-threatening organ dysfunction from a dysregulated response to infection.
What it is: Death of heart muscle from a blocked coronary artery.
π§ Memory trick: Initial management: aspirin plus urgent assessment for reperfusion; give oxygen only if hypoxaemic and use nitrates or opioids selectively when clinically appropriate.
What it is: Ulceration of the stomach or duodenum from acid and mucosal injury.
What it is: Infection and inflammation of the lung's air sacs (alveoli).
What it is: Irreversible scarring of the liver with progressive loss of function.
What it is: A tendency to recurrent, unprovoked seizures from abnormal brain activity.
What it is: A chronic autoimmune inflammatory arthritis of the small joints.
π§ Memory trick: Rheumatoid arthritis spares the DIP joints (unlike osteoarthritis).
What it is: Inflammation of the meninges, usually from infection.
π§ Memory trick: A meningococcal rash is non-blanching (the glass test).
What it is: A degenerative disorder from loss of dopamine neurons in the substantia nigra.
π§ Memory trick: Parkinson's TRAP: Tremor, Rigidity, Akinesia, Postural instability.
What it is: Arthritis caused by deposition of monosodium urate crystals.
What it is: A structured approach to any acutely unwell patient - assess and treat in order.
π§ Memory trick: ABCDE - Airway, Breathing, Circulation, Disability, Exposure.
What it is: Identifying common heart-rhythm disturbances on the ECG.
π§ Memory trick: Rate? Rhythm? QRS width? - then name it.
What it is: A structured differential of acute chest pain, prioritising the life-threats.
π§ Memory trick: Rule out the killers first: ACS, PE, dissection, pneumothorax, rupture.
What it is: A structured differential of acute dyspnoea.
π§ Memory trick: Heart, lungs or blood - work through each.
What it is: A rapid fall in kidney function over hours to days.
π§ Memory trick: AKI causes: pre-renal, renal, post-renal.
What it is: A structured differential of yellow discolouration from raised bilirubin.
π§ Memory trick: Pre-hepatic, hepatic, post-hepatic (obstructive).
What it is: A severe, rapid-onset systemic hypersensitivity reaction.
π§ Memory trick: Anaphylaxis = IM adrenaline first, into the thigh.
What it is: Early recognition of clinical deterioration using track-and-trigger scores.
π§ Memory trick: NEWS rising = escalate early; watch the respiratory rate.
What it is: A high serum potassium that can cause fatal arrhythmia.
π§ Memory trick: Protect, Shift, Remove - calcium, then insulin and salbutamol, then dialysis.
What it is: A low serum sodium assessed through the patient's fluid status.
π§ Memory trick: Assess fluid status first - it drives the whole differential.
What it is: A multifactorial assessment of the older person who falls.
π§ Memory trick: Before, during, after - the story around a fall reveals the cause.
What it is: A seizure lasting over 5 minutes, or repeated seizures without recovery in between.
π§ Memory trick: Benzo, benzo, then a second-line drug - then call ICU.
What it is: Evaluating the sensation of a fast, forceful or irregular heartbeat.
π§ Memory trick: Catch the rhythm on an ECG while the symptoms are happening.
What it is: A mosquito-borne viral illness common in the tropics, causing high fever and body aches, which can turn severe.
π§ Memory trick: Dengue (dengue virus, Aedes mosquito, tropics): sudden high fever, headache, pain behind the eyes, break-bone muscle and joint pain; low platelets; severe dengue is plasma leak, bleeding and shock (worse in a second infection); warning signs are abdominal pain, vomiting, bleeding.
What it is: A systemic bacterial infection from contaminated food or water, causing a stepwise fever and abdominal symptoms.
π§ Memory trick: Typhoid (Salmonella typhi, faecal-oral): step-ladder fever, headache, relative slow pulse; tender abdomen, big spleen, rose spots; late danger is gut bleeding and perforation; blood culture confirms.
What it is: Conditions in which the gut fails to absorb nutrients properly, leading to weight loss, bulky stools and deficiencies.
π§ Memory trick: Malabsorption is a gut that fails to absorb nutrients: greasy, floating, foul stools (steatorrhoea), weight loss, deficiencies; causes are coeliac disease (gluten), pancreatic disease and small-bowel disease; leads to anaemia and thin bones.
What it is: The condition caused by too much of the steroid hormone cortisol, whether from medicines or from the body's own overproduction.
π§ Memory trick: Cushing's is too much cortisol (usually steroid medicines; or pituitary ACTH = Cushing's disease, or an adrenal tumour): moon face, buffalo hump, central obesity with thin limbs, purple striae; high blood pressure and sugar, thin bruising skin, weak bones.
What it is: Infection with a virus that attacks the immune system, leaving the body open to unusual infections and cancers.
π§ Memory trick: HIV destroys CD4 helper T cells (spread by sex, blood, needles, mother-to-child): a brief flu-like illness, then a long silent CD4 decline; AIDS is the advanced stage with opportunistic infections (Pneumocystis, TB) and Kaposi sarcoma; monitor CD4 and viral load.
What it is: A group of diseases in which blood vessels become inflamed, damaging the organs they supply, grouped by vessel size.
π§ Memory trick: Vasculitides are inflamed blood-vessel walls, grouped by size: large (giant cell arteritis; older, headache, vision loss), medium and small (polyarteritis nodosa, ANCA-associated; kidney, nerve, skin, lung); fever, weight loss, high inflammatory markers.
What it is: A common viral infection of the airways that causes seasonal epidemics and, occasionally, worldwide pandemics.
π§ Memory trick: Influenza (types A and B, droplet spread): sudden fever, aches, headache, dry cough, exhaustion; surface proteins drift (vaccine updated) and can shift to a new pandemic strain (2009 swine flu H1N1); severe in the very young, old, pregnant and chronically ill.
What it is: Infection of the inner lining of the heart, usually a valve, where clumps of bacteria and clot form growths called vegetations.
π§ Memory trick: Infective endocarditis is an infected heart valve: blood-borne bacteria (dental work, skin, injecting) settle on a damaged or prosthetic valve to form vegetations that embolise; fever, new murmur, splinter haemorrhages, Janeway lesions; blood cultures plus echo (Duke criteria).
What it is: The spectrum of liver damage caused by long-term heavy drinking, from a fatty liver to hepatitis and finally cirrhosis.
π§ Memory trick: Alcoholic liver disease is a spectrum: fatty liver (reversible), then alcoholic hepatitis (jaundice, tender big liver, can fail), then cirrhosis (scarred, portal hypertension, varices, ascites); stopping alcohol helps the early stages, but cirrhosis is permanent.
What it is: A disease in which the immune system attacks the insulating sheath of nerves in the brain and spinal cord, causing scattered neurological problems.
π§ Memory trick: Multiple sclerosis is autoimmune loss of myelin in the brain and cord, scattered in place and time: vision, weakness, numbness, unsteadiness, bladder; relapsing-remitting commonest; MRI plaques plus oligoclonal bands in the CSF.
What it is: Sudden inflammation of the pancreas as its own digestive enzymes are activated and begin to digest the gland.
π§ Memory trick: Acute pancreatitis is the pancreas digesting itself (gallstones, alcohol; 'I GET SMASHED'): severe upper-abdomen pain boring to the back, vomiting; raised amylase or lipase; severe disease brings shock, low calcium, fluid collections.
What it is: An inherited disorder in which abnormal haemoglobin makes red cells sickle-shaped, blocking small vessels and breaking down.
π§ Memory trick: Sickle cell disease is inherited HbS (a beta-globin point mutation): low oxygen sickles red cells, so they block vessels (painful crises) and break down early; damages spleen (infection risk), bones and kidneys; confirmed by haemoglobin electrophoresis.
What it is: Disorders of the master gland at the base of the brain, from too much or too little of its hormones, or from pressure by a tumour.
π§ Memory trick: Pituitary (master gland) disorders: over-secretion (prolactin gives milk and infertility, growth hormone gives acromegaly, ACTH gives Cushing's disease); a tumour presses the optic chiasm (bitemporal field loss); under-secretion is hypopituitarism; posterior gives diabetes insipidus (dilute urine, thirst).
What it is: A collection of fluid in the space around the lung, which compresses the lung and causes breathlessness.
π§ Memory trick: Pleural effusion is fluid around the lung: breathless, dull ache, reduced breath sounds, stony dull percussion; transudate (low protein; heart or liver failure) versus exudate (high protein; infection, cancer); Light's criteria separate them; sample the fluid.
What it is: Infection of the urinary system, usually by gut bacteria, common in women, ranging from a bladder infection to a kidney infection.
π§ Memory trick: UTI (usually E. coli via the urethra; commoner in women, pregnancy, catheters): cystitis is burning, frequency, urgency and low pain; pyelonephritis reaches the kidney with fever, loin pain and feeling unwell; confirm by urine test and culture.
What it is: A chronic infection by the tuberculosis bacillus, most often of the lungs, spread through the air and a major global disease.
π§ Memory trick: Tuberculosis (Mycobacterium tuberculosis, airborne): latent (contained) or active (worse with HIV); pulmonary gives a long cough, fever, night sweats, weight loss and blood; granulomas and upper-lobe changes; confirm by sputum microscopy, molecular test or culture.
What it is: Neurological conditions that produce too much or too little movement, from tremor and jerks to slowness and stiffness.
π§ Memory trick: Movement disorders (basal ganglia): too little (parkinsonism = slowness, stiffness, resting tremor, shuffling, low dopamine) versus too much (chorea, myoclonus, dystonia, tics, tremor); Huntington's is a hyperkinetic example.
What it is: The features and habits that raise a person's chance of heart attack and stroke, some changeable and some not.
π§ Memory trick: Cardiovascular risk factors drive atherosclerosis (heart attack, stroke): fixed (age, male sex, family history) versus changeable (smoking, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, obesity, poor diet, inactivity); they multiply, so total risk guides action.
What it is: Preventive treatment given soon after a possible exposure to a serious infection, to stop it from taking hold.
π§ Memory trick: Post-exposure prophylaxis is preventive treatment soon after exposure: HIV (a short antiviral course after needlestick or assault), rabies (wash plus vaccine, antibody for severe bites), tetanus (booster, antibody if dirty wound); act quickly to stop the infection establishing.
What it is: A sudden flooding of the lungs with fluid, usually because the heart cannot cope, causing severe breathlessness.
π§ Memory trick: Acute pulmonary oedema is sudden lung flooding (usually left heart failure): back-pressure leaks fluid into the air sacs; severe breathlessness, a drowning feeling, frothy pink sputum, crackles, low oxygen; the person sits upright; chest X-ray shows flooding.
What it is: Disorders of the heart valves, which either narrow (stenosis) and block flow or leak (regurgitation) and let blood flow backward.
π§ Memory trick: Valve disease is stenosis (narrowed, blocks flow) or regurgitation (leaky, backflow): mitral stenosis (rheumatic; lungs back up, breathless), aortic stenosis (calcific; chest pain, faints, breathless on effort); each gives a murmur; echo assesses.
What it is: Long-standing inflammation that permanently scars the pancreas, so it can no longer digest food or make enough insulin.
π§ Memory trick: Chronic pancreatitis is permanent scarring (mostly alcohol): loss of enzymes gives malabsorption and steatorrhoea; loss of insulin cells gives diabetes; a boring upper-abdomen pain to the back; imaging shows calcification.
What it is: Inflammation of the vermiform appendix β the commonest surgical abdominal emergency.
What it is: Circulatory failure causing inadequate tissue perfusion and oxygen delivery.
What it is: A blockage that prevents the normal passage of bowel contents.
What it is: Stones in the gallbladder and the inflammation they can cause.
π§ Memory trick: 5 Fs of gallstones: Fat, Female, Forty, Fertile, Fair.
What it is: Tissue injury from heat, chemicals, electricity or radiation.
π§ Memory trick: Estimate % burn area with the Rule of Nines.
What it is: How the body repairs tissue after injury.
What it is: Protrusion of an organ through a weak point in its containing wall.
What it is: The commonest cancer in women, usually a ductal carcinoma.
What it is: Sudden, severe abdominal pain that may need urgent surgery.
What it is: Assessment of a breast lump using triple assessment.
π§ Memory trick: Triple assessment: examine, image, biopsy.
What it is: A structured differential of a lump in the neck by site and age.
π§ Memory trick: Midline moves with swallowing (thyroid) or tongue (thyroglossal).
What it is: Problems arising after surgery, often timed predictably.
π§ Memory trick: Post-op fever 5 Ws: Wind, Water, Wound, Walking, Wonder-drugs.
What it is: A structured differential of blood passed per rectum.
π§ Memory trick: Bright red = low (anorectal); dark and tarry = high (upper GI).
What it is: A painful, swollen scrotum - exclude testicular torsion first.
π§ Memory trick: Acute scrotum = torsion until proven otherwise; explore urgently.
What it is: A structured approach to difficulty swallowing.
π§ Memory trick: Solids then liquids = mechanical; both from the start = motility.
What it is: Working through the differential of a lump in the groin.
π§ Memory trick: Pubic tubercle is the landmark - inguinal above and medial, femoral below and lateral.
What it is: Investigating blood in the urine.
π§ Memory trick: Painless visible haematuria is a red flag for cancer - investigate promptly.
What it is: Distinguishing the common causes of a chronic leg ulcer.
π§ Memory trick: Venous = gaiter and shallow; arterial = punched-out and painful.
What it is: Changes in tissue that carry an increased risk of turning into cancer, which are watched or removed to prevent it.
π§ Memory trick: Premalignant means a raised cancer risk: mouth (leukoplakia white, erythroplakia red and worse), skin (actinic keratosis to squamous cell carcinoma), gut (ulcerative colitis, polyps to bowel cancer); act early to prevent cancer.
What it is: Swollen, twisted surface veins of the legs caused by failure of the valves that keep blood flowing upward.
π§ Memory trick: Varicose veins are failed leg-vein valves, so blood flows back and pools into swollen twisted veins; aching, heaviness and swelling; late skin staining and a venous ulcer at the ankle; ultrasound finds the failed valves.
What it is: A collection of pus within the liver, most often from amoebic infection or from bacteria reaching the liver.
π§ Memory trick: A liver abscess is pus in the liver: amoebic (Entamoeba, anchovy-sauce fluid) or pyogenic (bacteria via the bile ducts or portal vein); fever with right-upper pain and a tender big liver; it may rupture.
What it is: Growths of the salivary glands, most of which occur in the parotid gland and most of which are benign.
π§ Memory trick: Salivary tumours are mostly in the parotid and mostly benign; pleomorphic adenoma is commonest (benign mixed); Warthin's affects older men and may be bilateral; a smaller gland means more likely malignant; facial weakness warns of malignancy.
What it is: A twisting of the loose sigmoid colon on its stalk, which blocks the bowel and can cut off its blood supply.
π§ Memory trick: Sigmoid volvulus is a twist of the long, mobile sigmoid, giving a large-bowel obstruction: colicky pain, gross distension, constipation and late vomiting; the X-ray shows a coffee-bean loop; a tight twist causes gangrene.
What it is: Narrowing of the arteries to the legs that starves the muscles of blood, causing cramping pain on walking.
π§ Memory trick: Peripheral arterial disease is narrowed leg arteries (atherosclerosis): calf pain on walking eased by rest (claudication), then rest pain at night, then a cold, pale, pulseless leg with ulcers and gangrene (critical ischaemia).
What it is: Cancers of the testis, the commonest solid cancer in young men, which usually present as a painless lump.
π§ Memory trick: Testicular tumours are mostly germ-cell (seminoma versus non-seminoma), a painless firm testis lump in a young man; markers AFP and beta-hCG (non-seminoma) and LDH for bulk; they spread to the para-aortic nodes.
What it is: A cystic disease caused by the larva of a dog tapeworm, most often forming slow-growing cysts in the liver.
π§ Memory trick: Hydatid is the larva of Echinococcus granulosus (adult in dogs, sheep the intermediate host); humans swallow eggs and grow a slow fluid cyst in the liver (then lung) with daughter cysts; rupture causes severe allergy.
What it is: Tuberculosis affecting the bowel, its lymph nodes and the lining of the abdomen, a common surgical form of the disease in some regions.
π§ Memory trick: Abdominal TB favours the ileocaecal region (narrowing, obstruction), the peritoneum (ascites, doughy abdomen) and lymph nodes (matted masses); long fever, weight loss, night sweats; mimics Crohn and cancer.
What it is: A non-cancerous enlargement of the prostate gland in older men that squeezes the urine tube and disturbs the flow of urine.
π§ Memory trick: Benign prostatic hyperplasia is inner-gland overgrowth in older men squeezing the urethra: weak stream, hesitancy, dribbling, frequency and night waking; back-pressure risks infection, stones and kidney damage; tell it from cancer (outer gland, hard).
What it is: A locally aggressive bone tumour of young adults, typically at the end of a long bone near a joint.
π§ Memory trick: Giant cell tumour (osteoclastoma) is many giant cells in a young adult at the end (epiphysis) of a long bone, often the knee; X-ray soap-bubble; benign but locally aggressive, may recur, rarely spreads to lung.
What it is: A small, benign bone tumour of young people that causes a characteristic night pain relieved by simple pain-killers.
π§ Memory trick: Osteoid osteoma is a small benign bone tumour of the young: night pain eased by aspirin; a central nidus ringed by dense bone (CT shows the nidus); benign, never malignant.
What it is: Overactivity of the parathyroid glands that raises blood calcium, usually from a benign tumour of one gland.
π§ Memory trick: Primary hyperparathyroidism (usually a single benign adenoma) makes too much parathyroid hormone, raising calcium: stones (kidney), bones (pain, cysts), abdominal groans and psychic moans; high calcium with high or inappropriate parathyroid hormone.
What it is: Ways of covering a wound that cannot be closed directly, by moving skin from one place to another.
π§ Memory trick: Cover big wounds by moving skin: a graft is free skin needing a new blood supply from the bed (split-thickness covers wide, full-thickness better quality); a flap brings its own blood supply for bare bone or tendon.
What it is: Common infections of the fingers and hand, whose enclosed spaces make even small infections painful and potentially serious.
π§ Memory trick: Hand infections in tight spaces are painful and serious: paronychia (nail fold), felon (fingertip pulp, throbbing), and tendon sheath infection (swollen bent finger, agony on straightening); pus under pressure harms tendon and blood supply.
What it is: Cancer of the stomach lining, often found late because its early symptoms are vague, with a generally poor outlook.
π§ Memory trick: Stomach cancer is usually adenocarcinoma (H. pylori, salted or smoked food, smoking); vague early symptoms (indigestion, weight loss) so found late; Virchow's node above the left collarbone; may seed the ovary (Krukenberg).
What it is: Cancer of the pancreas, often found late, classically causing painless yellowing of the skin when it blocks the bile duct.
π§ Memory trick: Pancreatic cancer (ductal adenocarcinoma, usually the head) blocks the bile duct: painless jaundice, dark urine, pale stools; Courvoisier's law (palpable gallbladder means not stones); weight loss, back pain, new diabetes; CA 19-9.
What it is: Cancer of the food pipe, which narrows it and causes progressive difficulty swallowing, first for solids then for liquids.
π§ Memory trick: Oesophageal cancer: squamous (upper and middle; smoking, alcohol) versus adenocarcinoma (lower; reflux, Barrett's); progressive dysphagia (solids then liquids), weight loss, regurgitation; spreads early by lymphatics.
What it is: Stones that form in the urinary tract from crystals in the urine, causing severe colicky pain and blocking the flow of urine.
π§ Memory trick: Urinary stones form from concentrated crystals (mostly calcium; low fluid a key risk): a ureteric stone gives colicky loin-to-groin pain with blood in urine; may block and infect; CT is most sensitive.
What it is: A blood clot in a deep vein, usually of the leg, which can break off and travel to the lungs.
π§ Memory trick: DVT is a deep-vein clot (calf or thigh) from Virchow's triad (stasis, hypercoagulability, wall injury): swollen, warm, tender, red calf; risks are surgery, immobility, travel, pregnancy, cancer; may embolise to the lung.
What it is: A lump formed when the body walls off an inflamed appendix, a complication that changes how appendicitis is handled.
π§ Memory trick: Appendicular mass is the body walling off an unremoved inflamed appendix (tender right-lower-abdomen lump days after onset); pus makes an abscess (swinging fever); often watched to settle, with the appendix removed later.
What it is: Displacement of the ball of the shoulder from its shallow socket, the most commonly dislocated large joint.
π§ Memory trick: Shoulder dislocation (commonest, shallow socket): mostly anterior (fall on an outstretched arm), squared-off flattened shoulder, arm held out, painful; check the axillary nerve (outer-shoulder numbness); may recur in the young.
What it is: Cancer of the mouth, strongly linked to tobacco and areca nut, often preceded by visible premalignant patches.
π§ Memory trick: Oral cancer (squamous cell) from tobacco, areca nut, smoking and alcohol; preceded by leukoplakia or erythroplakia; a non-healing ulcer or lump with raised firm edges; spreads to neck nodes.
What it is: A common childhood fracture just above the elbow, important because it can injure the nearby artery and nerves.
π§ Memory trick: Supracondylar humerus fracture (children, fall on an outstretched hand): lower fragment pushed back; danger to the brachial artery and nerves (check pulse, colour, nerves); Volkmann's ischaemic contracture (clawed hand) if the blood supply is lost.
What it is: Blockage of the outlet of the stomach, so food cannot pass into the intestine, causing vomiting of stale food.
π§ Memory trick: Gastric outlet obstruction blocks the stomach's exit (adults: peptic-ulcer scarring or cancer): vomiting of stale, bile-free food, fullness, weight loss, a distended stomach and a succussion splash; vomiting loses acid and salts.
What it is: The foot problems of people with long-standing diabetes, in which nerve damage and poor blood supply lead to ulcers and infection.
π§ Memory trick: Diabetic foot = neuropathy (no protective pain, so unnoticed injury and ulcer) plus poor blood supply (slow healing, gangrene) plus weak infection defence; leads to deep infection and amputation; prevent with foot care, footwear and sugar control.
What it is: A thickening of the muscle at the stomach's outlet in young babies, causing forceful vomiting and blocking milk from passing.
π§ Memory trick: Pyloric stenosis is a thickened pyloric muscle in a young baby (first-born boys): projectile vomiting after feeds but still hungry; an olive-shaped upper-abdomen lump and visible stomach waves; loses acid and salt; ultrasound confirms.
What it is: Two of the commonest harmless lumps under the skin, distinguished by their feel and their features.
π§ Memory trick: Common lumps: lipoma (soft, movable, slippery fat lump, painless, not attached to the skin) versus sebaceous cyst (in the skin, cheesy contents, central punctum, can become infected).
What it is: Injury to the head that can damage the brain, ranging from mild concussion to dangerous bleeding inside the skull.
π§ Memory trick: Head injury harms the brain at impact and from later bleeding or swelling in the closed skull: extradural (artery, skull fracture, lucid interval) versus subdural (bridging veins, slower, elderly or alcohol); watch falling consciousness, headache, vomiting, unequal pupils; Glasgow Coma Scale plus CT.
What it is: The checks made before an operation to judge a patient's fitness and to reduce the risks of surgery and anaesthesia.
π§ Memory trick: Preoperative assessment judges fitness for surgery and anaesthesia: review history, medicines, allergies, past anaesthetics and other illnesses; examine and test for anaemia, infection and organ problems; grade physical status (risk); adjust smoking and some drugs beforehand.
What it is: Cancer of the colon or rectum, a common cancer that often grows from a polyp over years and can be caught early by screening.
π§ Memory trick: Colorectal cancer usually grows from an adenoma polyp over years (age, family history, ulcerative colitis, low-fibre diet): the right side bleeds silently (anaemia), the left alters bowel habit and obstructs; rectal is bleeding and incomplete emptying; screening catches it early.
What it is: The phases of childbirth from onset of contractions to delivery of the placenta.
What it is: New-onset hypertension with proteinuria after 20 weeks of pregnancy.
What it is: The ~28-day hormonal cycle that prepares the uterus for pregnancy.
What it is: Excessive bleeding after delivery β a leading cause of maternal death.
π§ Memory trick: 4 Ts of PPH: Tone, Trauma, Tissue, Thrombin.
What it is: Bleeding from the genital tract after 20 weeks and before delivery.
What it is: Methods used to prevent unwanted pregnancy.
What it is: The care of a woman and her fetus during pregnancy.
What it is: A pregnancy implanted outside the uterine cavity, usually the fallopian tube.
What it is: A common hormonal disorder causing irregular ovulation.
What it is: Benign smooth-muscle tumours (leiomyomas) of the uterus.
What it is: The permanent end of menstruation from loss of ovarian function.
What it is: Assessing vaginal bleeding in the first trimester.
π§ Memory trick: Early-pregnancy bleeding: miscarriage, ectopic, molar - exclude ectopic first.
What it is: Time-critical complications around delivery.
π§ Memory trick: Call for help early - PPH, dystocia, cord prolapse, eclampsia.
What it is: Reading the cardiotocograph to assess fetal wellbeing in labour.
π§ Memory trick: DR C BRAVADO - Define Risk, Contractions, Baseline RAte, Variability, Accelerations, Decelerations, Overall.
What it is: A structured approach to heavy, irregular or intermenstrual bleeding.
π§ Memory trick: PALM-COEIN - PALM is structural, COEIN is not.
What it is: A placenta that lies low in the womb, covering or close to the outlet, causing painless bleeding late in pregnancy.
π§ Memory trick: Placenta praevia is a low placenta over or near the cervix: painless bright-red bleeding late in pregnancy, often an abnormal lie; avoid vaginal examination (severe bleeding), locate it with ultrasound.
What it is: Growths of the ovary, which range widely from harmless cysts to cancer and often grow silently until large.
π§ Memory trick: Ovarian tumours by origin: epithelial (commonest, most cancers, older women), germ cell (dermoid cyst, young women), sex-cord stromal; grow silently with bloating and pressure; CA-125 marks epithelial cancer.
What it is: Cancer of the neck of the womb, strongly linked to a common virus and largely preventable by screening and vaccination.
π§ Memory trick: Cervical cancer is caused by persistent high-risk HPV, which drives slow steps from pre-cancer to cancer over years; screen with the Pap smear and HPV test; largely preventable by vaccine plus screening; late sign is bleeding after intercourse.
What it is: The wide-ranging adjustments the mother's body makes to support the growing baby, affecting almost every organ system.
π§ Memory trick: Pregnancy adapts everything: blood volume up (dilutional anaemia), heart output and pulse up, blood pressure dips mid-pregnancy, breathing deepens, kidneys filter more (infection risk), and hormones relax the gut and pelvic joints.
What it is: The series of passive movements the baby's head makes to pass through the birth canal during a normal labour.
π§ Memory trick: Mechanism of labour: descent and flexion (chin tucks, smallest diameter leads), internal rotation, birth by extension, then restitution and external rotation, and finally the shoulders and body.
What it is: The failure of a couple to conceive after a year of regular unprotected intercourse, which can arise from either partner.
π§ Memory trick: Infertility (no conception after ~1 year) can be either partner: man = low or poor sperm (semen analysis); woman = no ovulation, blocked tubes, womb disorders; test ovulation (hormones) and tubes (dye imaging); often mixed or unexplained.
What it is: A dropping down of the womb and vaginal walls when their supports weaken, so the pelvic organs bulge toward or out of the vagina.
π§ Memory trick: Prolapse is a dropping of womb and vaginal walls when supports weaken (childbirth, menopause, raised pressure): the womb descends in degrees; front wall bulges with bladder (cystocele), back wall with rectum (rectocele); dragging feeling and a lump.
What it is: A pregnancy in which the mother or baby has a greater than usual chance of harm, needing closer watching.
π§ Memory trick: High-risk pregnancy has a raised chance of harm: mother (age extremes, high blood pressure, diabetes, heart or kidney disease, anaemia), pregnancy (twins, fluid problems, low placenta), and a poor past history; spot early for closer care.
What it is: The ways of working out how far a pregnancy has advanced, which guides care and the expected date of delivery.
π§ Memory trick: Gestational age is completed weeks from the last menstrual period (expected delivery about forty weeks); an early ultrasound dates it most accurately; fundal height gives a rough guide later; after birth a scoring system estimates it.
What it is: The expected ages for gross-motor, fine-motor, language and social achievements.
What it is: Yellow discolouration of a newborn from raised serum bilirubin.
What it is: The routine vaccine schedule that protects children from key infections; schedules vary by country, and this one follows India's National Immunization Schedule.
What it is: Severe undernutrition from inadequate protein and/or calories.
What it is: The commonest chromosomal disorder, caused by an extra chromosome 21.
What it is: A rapid score of a newborn's condition at 1 and 5 minutes of life.
π§ Memory trick: APGAR: Appearance, Pulse, Grimace, Activity, Respiration.
What it is: A leading cause of childhood death, largely preventable with rehydration.
What it is: Seizures triggered by fever in young children, without CNS infection.
What it is: Structural heart defects that are present from birth.
What it is: Supporting a newborn that does not breathe well at birth.
π§ Memory trick: Warm, stimulate, airway, breathe - ventilation is the key.
What it is: Rapidly recognising serious illness in a child.
π§ Memory trick: Look at appearance, breathing and colour - then act on red flags.
What it is: Recognising and acting on suspected child abuse.
π§ Memory trick: Injury that doesn't fit the story = think safeguarding.
What it is: Assessing and managing wheeze in a child by likely cause and age.
π§ Memory trick: Under 1 = bronchiolitis; recurrent and reversible = asthma.
What it is: Weight gain or growth that is slower than expected in a child.
π§ Memory trick: Faltering growth is usually too few calories in - start with feeding.
What it is: The initial resuscitation sequence for a collapsed child.
π§ Memory trick: Children arrest from breathing - so start with 5 rescue breaths.
What it is: Assessing the blue newborn and separating cardiac from respiratory causes.
π§ Memory trick: The 5 Ts of cyanotic heart disease all begin with T.
What it is: The common childhood infections that cause a fever with a widespread rash, several of them now prevented by vaccines.
π§ Memory trick: Childhood exanthems (fever plus rash, mostly viral): measles (Koplik spots, rash spreads down from the face), rubella (mild, glands behind the ears, danger to the fetus), chickenpox (itchy crops of blisters); plus roseola, slapped-cheek and hand-foot-and-mouth.
What it is: Inherited enzyme defects that block a step in the body's chemistry, so harmful substances build up or vital products run short.
π§ Memory trick: Inborn errors of metabolism are inherited single-enzyme blocks: harm from build-up before the block or shortage after; phenylketonuria (phenylalanine harms the brain), galactosaemia, maple syrup urine disease; newborn screening catches them early.
What it is: Conditions that affect how a child develops, learns and behaves, recognised by watching development against expected milestones.
π§ Memory trick: Child development and behaviour disorders (against milestones): autism (social-communication difficulty plus repetitive behaviour and narrow interests); ADHD (inattention, overactivity, impulsiveness); intellectual disability (reduced learning from childhood); early support helps.
What it is: A serious bloodstream infection in a newborn baby, whose signs are subtle, needing a high index of suspicion.
π§ Memory trick: Neonatal sepsis is a serious blood infection in a newborn (immature immunity): early-onset (from the mother; Group B strep, E. coli) versus late-onset (environmental); subtle signs (poor feeding, lethargy, temperature swings, fast breathing); look for it actively.
What it is: The feeding of babies with breast milk, the ideal first food, and the way solid foods are added as the baby grows.
π§ Memory trick: Breast milk is the ideal infant food (right nutrients, protective antibodies, bonding): exclusive for about six months; colostrum is antibody-rich; protects against infection and obesity; add soft complementary foods from about six months.
What it is: Two common viral chest infections of young children, one narrowing the voice box and the other the smallest airways.
π§ Memory trick: Croup (parainfluenza; toddlers) swells the voice box: barking cough, stridor, hoarse voice, worse at night; bronchiolitis (RSV; babies) hits the smallest airways: runny nose then wheeze, fast breathing, feeding trouble; both are diagnosed clinically.
What it is: A World Health Organization approach that helps health workers assess, classify and act on the common illnesses of young children in one simple system.
π§ Memory trick: IMNCI (WHO) manages the main childhood killers together (pneumonia, diarrhoea, malaria, measles, malnutrition) plus newborn care: check danger signs, classify by colour code (referral / specific care / home advice); promotes immunisation, breastfeeding, nutrition.
What it is: The staged biological process by which bone repairs itself.
What it is: A surgical emergency where raised pressure within a fascial compartment cuts off perfusion.
π§ Memory trick: 6 Ps β Pain, Paraesthesia, Pallor, Pulselessness, Paralysis, Poikilothermia.
What it is: A degenerative 'wear-and-tear' disease of synovial joints.
π§ Memory trick: OA on X-ray = LOSS: Loss of joint space, Osteophytes, Subchondral sclerosis, Subchondral cysts.
What it is: A break in the continuity of a bone.
What it is: Reduced bone mass and density, raising the risk of fracture.
What it is: Soft, weak bones from defective mineralisation (vitamin D deficiency).
What it is: Infection of bone, usually bacterial (often Staphylococcus aureus).
What it is: Infection within a joint - an orthopaedic emergency.
π§ Memory trick: Hot joint + fever = aspirate and treat urgently.
What it is: Herniation of the nucleus pulposus compressing a nerve root.
π§ Memory trick: Sciatica + positive SLR = disc; red flags = cauda equina emergency.
What it is: Primary and secondary neoplasms of bone.
π§ Memory trick: Osteosarcoma sunburst; Ewing onion-skin; giant cell soap-bubble.
What it is: Separating benign mechanical back pain from sinister causes.
π§ Memory trick: Saddle numbness or incontinence - think cauda equina now.
What it is: An age-based approach to the child who will not weight-bear.
π§ Memory trick: A limping child with fever - urgently assess for septic arthritis.
What it is: A common birth deformity of the foot in which it is turned downward and inward, best corrected early in life.
π§ Memory trick: Clubfoot (CTEV) at birth: Equinus (toes down), Varus (heel in), forefoot in, high arch; rigid, not a positional foot; correctable early without operation; untreated means walking on the foot's outer border.
What it is: A condition present in early life in which the hip joint is poorly formed, so the ball can slip out of a shallow socket.
π§ Memory trick: DDH is a shallow hip socket letting the ball slip out (girls, breech, family history); newborn Ortolani and Barlow tests; later uneven creases, short leg, limited abduction; missed cases limp and wear out early.
What it is: The problems that can follow a broken bone, either early and dangerous or late and affecting healing and function.
π§ Memory trick: Fracture complications: early (bleeding and shock, nerve and vessel injury, infection, fat embolism, compartment syndrome) and late (malunion, non-union, slow union, avascular necrosis, joint stiffness).
What it is: The ways broken bones are described and grouped by the shape of the break and whether the skin is broken.
π§ Memory trick: Describe fractures by site, pattern and skin: transverse, oblique, spiral, comminuted (shattered); children get greenstick and buckle fractures and growth-plate injuries; open (compound) fractures risk infection.
What it is: Displacement of the ball of the hip from its socket, usually from a strong force, most often pushing it backward.
π§ Memory trick: Hip dislocation is usually posterior (dashboard injury, hip flexed): the leg is short, flexed and turned in with a fixed hip; check the sciatic nerve; the femoral head blood supply is at risk (avascular necrosis).
What it is: Injuries to the ligaments and cartilage of the knee that are common in sports, causing pain, swelling and instability.
π§ Memory trick: Knee sports injuries: ACL torn by a twist on a planted foot (pop, rapid swelling, giving way); meniscus torn by twisting a bent, loaded knee (locking, slower swelling); unhappy triad is ACL plus medial collateral plus medial meniscus; MRI confirms.
What it is: Inflammation of the middle ear, very common in young children.
What it is: Bleeding from the nose β usually minor but occasionally serious.
What it is: The two fundamental types of hearing loss, told apart at the bedside.
What it is: Inflammation of the palatine tonsils, common in children.
What it is: An illusion of movement, usually from an inner-ear (vestibular) problem.
What it is: Inflammation of the paranasal sinus mucosa, usually after a viral cold.
π§ Memory trick: Think bacterial if it persists >10 days or double-worsens.
What it is: An inner-ear disorder from excess endolymph (endolymphatic hydrops).
π§ Memory trick: Meniere = Vertigo + Hearing loss + Tinnitus (with fullness).
What it is: Inflammation of the external ear canal (swimmer's ear).
π§ Memory trick: Tragal tenderness = otitis externa (canal); otitis media = deep ache behind the drum.
What it is: A change in voice; persistent hoarseness can signal laryngeal cancer.
π§ Memory trick: Hoarseness >3 weeks in a smoker = scope the larynx.
What it is: Abnormal keratinising squamous epithelium in the middle ear that erodes bone.
π§ Memory trick: Foul discharge + hearing loss + erosion = cholesteatoma ('skin in the wrong place').
What it is: Distinguishing a self-limiting sore throat from dangerous causes.
π§ Memory trick: Drooling, stridor, distress - think epiglottitis, hands off the throat.
What it is: Working out the cause of ear pain, including referred pain.
π§ Memory trick: Normal ear but sore ear = referred pain - check teeth, jaw and throat.
What it is: Enlargement of the lymphoid tissue at the back of the nose in children, which can block the nose and the ear tubes.
π§ Memory trick: Adenoids are nasopharyngeal lymphoid tissue in children; enlargement blocks the nose (mouth breathing, snoring, adenoid facies) and the Eustachian tube (middle-ear fluid, dull hearing); they shrink with age.
What it is: Two common causes of a blocked nose: soft swellings of the nasal lining, and a bent partition between the nostrils.
π§ Memory trick: Blocked-nose causes: nasal polyps (soft, pale, grape-like swellings from allergy or inflammation; block, smell loss, runny nose; linked to asthma, and cystic fibrosis in children) and a deviated septum (bent partition blocking one side).
What it is: Clouding of the lens causing painless, progressive loss of vision.
What it is: Optic-nerve damage, usually linked to raised intraocular pressure.
What it is: Microvascular damage to the retina from long-standing diabetes.
What it is: Inflammation of the conjunctiva β the common 'red eye'.
What it is: The eye fails to focus light sharply on the retina.
π§ Memory trick: Myopia = Minus lens; hypermetropia = Plus lens.
What it is: Separation of the retina from the underlying layer β an eye emergency.
What it is: A leading cause of preventable childhood blindness.
What it is: Degeneration of the central retina (macula), the leading cause of central vision loss in the elderly.
π§ Memory trick: AMD = central vision goes, drusen at the macula.
What it is: Inflammation of the uveal tract (iris, ciliary body, choroid).
π§ Memory trick: Painful red eye + photophobia + small pupil = anterior uveitis.
What it is: A common presentation with causes ranging from trivial to sight-threatening.
π§ Memory trick: Painless + normal vision = benign; pain + poor vision = danger.
What it is: An ophthalmic emergency that needs rapid triage.
π§ Memory trick: Painless versus painful splits sudden visual loss.
What it is: Assessing and protecting the injured eye.
π§ Memory trick: Chemical burn to the eye - irrigate first, ask questions later.
What it is: An open sore on the clear front window of the eye, usually from infection, which threatens sight if it scars the cornea.
π§ Memory trick: A corneal ulcer is an infected break in the cornea (bacteria, herpes, fungi, Acanthamoeba); pain, watering, photophobia and blurred vision; stains with fluorescein; hypopyon if severe; a scar over the pupil can blind.
What it is: Sudden blockage of the artery or vein of the retina, an important cause of sudden painless loss of vision.
π§ Memory trick: Artery occlusion is a sudden painless severe loss with a pale retina and cherry-red spot (an eye stroke from an embolus); vein occlusion is blurring with scattered haemorrhages (stormy sunset); both link to vascular risk.
What it is: The patterns of lost vision that follow damage at different points along the visual pathway, used to locate the problem.
π§ Memory trick: Field defects localise the lesion: one optic nerve means that eye is blind; the chiasm (pituitary tumour) gives bitemporal hemianopia; behind the chiasm gives homonymous hemianopia.
What it is: Inflammation of the middle, pigmented layer of the eye, which causes a painful red eye and can threaten sight.
π§ Memory trick: Uveitis is inflammation of the uvea (iris, ciliary body, choroid); anterior (iridocyclitis) gives a painful red eye, photophobia, a small sluggish pupil and cells on the cornea, with the iris sticking to the lens; linked to spondylitis, sarcoid and IBD.
What it is: The changes in the retina caused by long-standing high blood pressure, seen when the back of the eye is examined.
π§ Memory trick: Hypertensive retinopathy is graded: arteries narrow with arteriovenous nipping, then flame haemorrhages and cotton-wool spots, then disc swelling (papilloedema); the eye mirrors body-wide vascular damage.
What it is: An inherited disease in which the light-sensing cells of the retina slowly die, causing night blindness and shrinking vision.
π§ Memory trick: Retinitis pigmentosa is an inherited rod-then-cone degeneration: night blindness first, then tunnel vision; the fundus shows bone-spicule pigment, a pale disc and thin vessels; a leading inherited cause of sight loss.
What it is: Misalignment of the eyes and the lazy eye that can result when the brain suppresses the image from one eye in childhood.
π§ Memory trick: A squint is misaligned eyes; the child's brain suppresses one image, and if this lasts through visual development that eye becomes amblyopic (lazy); detect it with the light reflex and cover test; early detection saves sight.
What it is: A serious infection of the tissues within the eye socket, often spreading from the sinuses, that threatens sight and life.
π§ Memory trick: Orbital cellulitis is infection inside the socket (usually from the ethmoid sinus): a red, swollen, bulging eye (proptosis) with painful limited movement and reduced vision; unlike preseptal (no movement limit); can spread to the brain.
What it is: Infection of the tear sac, usually because the tear duct is blocked, causing a watering eye and a swelling at the inner corner.
π§ Memory trick: A blocked tear duct makes tears pool and the sac infect (dacryocystitis): a watering eye plus a red tender swelling at the inner corner; pressing the sac refluxes pus; babies often have an unopened duct membrane.
What it is: A recurring allergic inflammation of the surface of the eye, common in boys and worse in warm, dry seasons.
π§ Memory trick: Spring catarrh is a seasonal allergic conjunctivitis (boys, other allergies): intense itching, ropy discharge, photophobia; cobblestone bumps on the upper lid; it tends to settle with age.
What it is: Wasting of the optic nerve fibres, seen as a pale optic disc, causing a loss of vision that cannot be reversed.
π§ Memory trick: Optic atrophy is death of optic nerve fibres, giving a pale or white disc; reduced sharpness, colour loss and a field defect; causes are pressure, poor blood supply, inflammation, toxins; it is permanent.
What it is: Damage to the optic nerve from poisons or from a lack of key nutrients, causing a gradual, painless loss of central vision in both eyes.
π§ Memory trick: Toxic or nutritional optic neuropathy gives slow, painless, both-eye central vision loss: methanol (sudden, blinding), tobacco-alcohol amblyopia, and B12 lack; a central scotoma, with colour affected first.
What it is: The thin layer of fluid that coats the front of the eye to keep it smooth, moist and protected, and the trouble caused when it fails.
π§ Memory trick: The tear film is three layers (oily slows evaporation, watery cleans and nourishes, mucus spreads); it keeps the cornea smooth and fights germs; dry eye (too few or fast-evaporating tears) is gritty and burning with reflex watering.
What it is: Common conditions of the eyelids, including infections, lumps and problems with their position.
π§ Memory trick: Lid disorders: stye (painful infected gland), chalazion (painless oil-gland lump), ptosis (droop), entropion (turns in so lashes rub) versus ectropion (turns out), and blepharitis (crusty lid margins).
What it is: How blindness and low vision are defined by the level of sight, and the main causes worldwide, many of which are preventable.
π§ Memory trick: Blindness is graded by sharpness and field (WHO categories); the top causes are cataract, refractive error, glaucoma and diabetic eye disease; much of it is avoidable; in children think vitamin A lack, infection and inherited disease.
What it is: The methods used to look at the back of the eye (the fundus), including the optic disc, retina and vessels.
π§ Memory trick: Ophthalmoscopy views the fundus: direct gives a high-magnification, small, upright view (good for the disc); indirect gives a wide, less magnified, inverted view (good for the periphery); dilate the pupil to see more.
What it is: The changes in the eyes that reflect diseases of the whole body, making the eye a window on general health.
π§ Memory trick: The eye is a window on the body: diabetes (retinopathy), high blood pressure (retinal changes), raised skull pressure (papilloedema), thyroid eye disease (bulging eyes), rheumatic disease (inflamed coats); plus corneal rings and cherry-red spots.
What it is: The layered make-up of the eyeball, whose three coats and clear contents work together to form an image.
π§ Memory trick: The eyeball has three coats: an outer fibrous (sclera plus clear cornea), a middle vascular uvea (iris, ciliary body, choroid), and an inner nervous retina; the lens focuses; aqueous fills the front and vitreous the back.
What it is: A chronic, immune-mediated skin disease with rapid skin-cell turnover.
What it is: A chronic, itchy, relapsing inflammatory skin disease, part of the atopic triad.
What it is: A malignant tumour of melanocytes β the most dangerous skin cancer.
π§ Memory trick: ABCDE of melanoma: Asymmetry, Border irregularity, Colour variation, Diameter > 6 mm, Evolving.
What it is: A common disorder of the pilosebaceous (hair-oil gland) units.
What it is: A superficial fungal infection of skin, hair or nails.
What it is: A chronic infection by Mycobacterium leprae affecting skin and nerves.
What it is: An intensely itchy skin infestation by the mite Sarcoptes scabiei.
What it is: Transient itchy wheals (urticaria) and deeper swelling (angioedema) from mast-cell mediator release.
π§ Memory trick: Wheals itch and move; angioedema swells deep.
What it is: Two autoimmune blistering diseases distinguished by the level of the split.
π§ Memory trick: Pemphigus = flaccid + Positive Nikolsky (worse); pemphigoiD = Deep, tense, protective.
What it is: The vocabulary to describe rashes and lesions accurately.
π§ Memory trick: SCAM - Size, Colour, Arrangement, Morphology.
What it is: A structured approach to the itchy patient.
π§ Memory trick: Itch with no rash - look inside for a systemic cause.
What it is: Spotting the rashes that signal a life-threatening illness.
π§ Memory trick: Non-blanching rash plus fever = meningococcus until proven otherwise.
What it is: Loss of hair, which may be patchy or diffuse, scarring or non-scarring, and which has many different causes.
π§ Memory trick: Alopecia is non-scarring (follicle survives, can regrow) or scarring (destroyed, permanent): pattern loss (genes and hormones), alopecia areata (autoimmune patches, exclamation-mark hairs), telogen effluvium (diffuse shedding after stress).
What it is: An intensely itchy, blistering skin disease strongly linked to coeliac disease and sensitivity to gluten.
π§ Memory trick: Dermatitis herpetiformis is intensely itchy grouped blisters (elbows, knees, buttocks, scalp); linked to coeliac disease (gluten); IgA deposits at the dermal papillae tips; a gluten-free diet helps skin and gut.
What it is: Disorders in which the skin loses or gains pigment, changing its colour in patches, with important social effects.
π§ Memory trick: Pigment disorders: vitiligo is loss of melanocytes (milk-white patches, autoimmune, linked to thyroid disease) versus melasma is extra pigment (brown facial patches, women, sun and pregnancy); harmless but distressing.
What it is: Severe, life-threatening skin reactions, usually to drugs, in which the skin blisters and peels off in sheets.
π§ Memory trick: SJS and TEN are severe drug reactions where skin and mucosae blister and peel (SJS smaller area, TEN larger); triggers are antiepileptics, sulfa, allopurinol, antibiotics; positive Nikolsky sign; behaves like a severe burn (fluid loss, infection).
What it is: A common, self-limiting rash of young people that starts with a single patch and then spreads in a typical pattern.
π§ Memory trick: Pityriasis rosea is a mild self-limiting rash (viral link): a herald patch first, then smaller oval patches along skin lines (Christmas-tree pattern on the back); fine edge scale, mild itch; clears in weeks.
What it is: A sexually transmitted infection caused by a spiral bacterium, which if untreated passes through several stages over years.
π§ Memory trick: Syphilis (Treponema pallidum; sexual or mother-to-child): primary is a painless chancre; secondary is a rash including palms and soles plus wart-like lesions; latent; tertiary damages heart, brain and organs years later; congenital in the baby.
What it is: Common skin infections caused by viruses, including warts from the papillomavirus and the blisters of herpes.
π§ Memory trick: Viral skin infections: warts (papillomavirus; hands, and verrucas on soles); herpes simplex (recurring blisters; type 1 cold sores, type 2 genital; dormant in nerves, reactivates); molluscum (pox virus; dimpled spots in children).
What it is: Infections of the skin by bacteria, ranging from surface impetigo to deeper, spreading cellulitis.
π§ Memory trick: Bacterial skin infections (Staph aureus, Strep pyogenes): impetigo (surface, golden crust, children); boil and carbuncle (follicle, deep); cellulitis (deep, spreading, hot red poorly defined); erysipelas (sharply defined, bright-red, raised).
What it is: A chronic psychotic disorder affecting thought, perception and behaviour.
What it is: A persistent low mood and loss of interest that impairs daily function.
π§ Memory trick: Screen with SIG E CAPS: Sleep, Interest, Guilt, Energy, Concentration, Appetite, Psychomotor, Suicide.
What it is: A mood disorder alternating between episodes of mania and depression.
What it is: Excessive, persistent worry or fear that impairs daily functioning.
What it is: Recurrent intrusive thoughts (obsessions) and repetitive acts (compulsions).
What it is: A compulsive pattern of harmful alcohol use with tolerance and withdrawal.
What it is: A progressive, global decline in cognition that affects daily life.
What it is: An acute, fluctuating disturbance of consciousness and attention.
π§ Memory trick: Delirium is acute and reversible; dementia is chronic and progressive.
What it is: A structured snapshot of a patient's mental state at the time of interview.
π§ Memory trick: ASEPTIC - Appearance, Speech, Emotion, Perception, Thought, Insight, Cognition.
What it is: Assessing and reducing the risk of harm to self or others.
π§ Memory trick: Asking about suicide saves lives; it never creates the idea.
What it is: Safe de-escalation and, when needed, rapid tranquillisation.
π§ Memory trick: Talk down before you reach for medication.
What it is: The syndrome that follows abrupt reduction of alcohol in a dependent person.
π§ Memory trick: Thiamine before glucose - or risk Wernicke's.
What it is: Judging whether a patient can make a specific decision at a specific time.
π§ Memory trick: Understand, Retain, Weigh, Communicate - all four are needed.
What it is: Long-standing, deeply ingrained patterns of thinking, feeling and behaving that differ markedly from what is expected and cause distress or problems.
π§ Memory trick: Personality disorder is an enduring, pervasive pattern differing from expectations, from early adulthood, causing distress: cluster A (odd), B (dramatic; borderline, antisocial), C (anxious); diagnosed from the long-term pattern, not one episode.
What it is: Mental disorders in which distress appears as physical symptoms or as a splitting-off of memory and identity, without a physical disease to explain them.
π§ Memory trick: Somatoform is genuine, unexplained physical symptoms (pain, paralysis) from distress, not faked; dissociative is a splitting-off of memory or identity (amnesia, fugue); both are ways the mind copes with stress; exclude physical disease first.
What it is: A simple grading of a patient's fitness before anaesthesia and surgery.
What it is: The three goals that define balanced general anaesthesia.
What it is: Drugs that reversibly block nerve conduction to numb a region.
π§ Memory trick: Amide local anaesthetics have an 'i' before -caine (lIdocaine, bupIvacaine).
What it is: Loss of sensation for surgery β delivered at different levels.
What it is: Keeping the airway open and protected β the first priority in a collapsing patient.
π§ Memory trick: Airway is 'A' β the very first step of ABC.
What it is: Drugs that block neuromuscular transmission to relax skeletal muscle.
π§ Memory trick: Sux depolarises (fast); the 'curoniums' compete (reversible).
What it is: Central neuraxial blocks that anaesthetise the lower body.
π§ Memory trick: Spinal = one shot into CSF; epidural = catheter outside the dura.
What it is: Supplemental oxygen delivery and its devices.
π§ Memory trick: Target 94-98%, or 88-92% if at risk of hypercapnic respiratory failure.
What it is: A life-threatening hypermetabolic reaction to anaesthetic triggers.
π§ Memory trick: Rigidity + rising ETCO2 + fever under anaesthesia = give dantrolene.
What it is: Choosing the right fluid, volume and rate for a patient.
π§ Memory trick: The 5 Rs - Resuscitation, Routine maintenance, Replacement, Redistribution, Reassessment.
What it is: Safe use of blood products and recognising transfusion reactions.
π§ Memory trick: Wrong blood in the wrong patient kills - always check identity.
What it is: Controlling pain after surgery using a stepwise, multimodal approach.
π§ Memory trick: Multimodal analgesia - hit pain from several angles and spare the opioid.
What it is: The continuous watching of a patient's vital functions during anaesthesia to keep them safe while they cannot respond.
π§ Memory trick: Anaesthesia monitoring (the patient cannot report): ECG (rhythm), blood pressure, pulse oximeter (oxygen), capnography (exhaled carbon dioxide, confirms the airway), temperature; early detection keeps anaesthesia safe.
What it is: Medicines given before an anaesthetic to calm the patient and to make the anaesthetic safer and smoother.
π§ Memory trick: Premedication prepares for anaesthesia: allay Anxiety, dry secretions, give Analgesia, prevent reflexes and vomiting, reduce Acid; tailored to the patient, the operation and the anaesthetic.
What it is: Drugs that reduce muscle spasm and stiffness by acting on the brain and spinal cord, rather than on the muscle itself.
π§ Memory trick: Centrally acting muscle relaxants ease spasm and spasticity through the cord and brain, not the muscle (unlike anaesthetic neuromuscular blockers): baclofen (GABA-B), tizanidine (alpha-2), diazepam (GABA); side effects are drowsiness and weakness.
What it is: The basic shades that let you read any plain radiograph.
π§ Memory trick: Darkest β brightest: Air, Fat, Water, Bone, Metal.
What it is: Matching the right scan to the clinical question.
What it is: The two main cross-sectional imaging techniques and when to use each.
What it is: The commonest radiograph β a systematic read avoids missed findings.
π§ Memory trick: Quality = RIPE (Rotation, Inspiration, Penetration, Exposure); then read A-B-C-D-E.
What it is: Imaging with high-frequency sound waves β no ionising radiation.
What it is: Agents that improve tissue distinction on imaging.
π§ Memory trick: Iodine for CT, gadolinium for MRI, barium for gut.
What it is: Principles that minimise ionising-radiation exposure.
π§ Memory trick: ALARA protection: Time, Distance, Shielding.
What it is: A systematic approach to the plain abdominal film.
π§ Memory trick: 3/6/9 rule: small bowel 3, colon 6, caecum 9 cm.
What it is: Imaging using radioactive tracers to show function, not just anatomy.
π§ Memory trick: Nuclear medicine shows function; PET-FDG lights up hungry (cancer) cells.
What it is: Matching the imaging test to the clinical question and to safety.
π§ Memory trick: No-radiation tests first - ultrasound and MRI where you can.
What it is: Spotting air in the pleural space on a chest radiograph.
π§ Memory trick: Lung edge with a black, marking-free space beyond = pneumothorax.
What it is: Reading the abdominal film in suspected obstruction.
π§ Memory trick: 3-6-9 - small bowel 3 cm, large bowel 6 cm, caecum 9 cm.
What it is: The imaging methods used to examine the kidneys, urinary tract and reproductive organs, each suited to different questions.
π§ Memory trick: Genitourinary imaging: ultrasound first (kidney size, hydronephrosis, stones, no radiation); plain X-ray shows calcium stones; CT most sensitive for stones and staging; a contrast urogram outlines the drainage; prefer ultrasound or MRI in pregnancy and children.
What it is: The imaging methods used to examine bones, joints and soft tissues, from plain X-rays to MRI.
π§ Memory trick: Musculoskeletal imaging: plain X-ray first (fractures, dislocations, arthritis, bone lesions; good for bone, poor for soft tissue); ultrasound (tendons, muscles, guided injections); CT (complex fractures, fine bone); MRI (ligaments, cartilage, marrow, cord and discs).
What it is: The chest X-ray changes that point to narrowing of the mitral valve, from the back-pressure it causes in the lungs.
π§ Memory trick: Mitral stenosis on chest X-ray: a big left atrium (straight left heart border, double shadow), upper-lobe blood diversion, Kerley B lines (raised lung-vein pressure); late a calcified valve with big pulmonary arteries and a big right heart.
Educational only β not clinical advice. Concepts are concise revision summaries; always confirm with your prescribed textbooks and correlate clinically.
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