Biochemistry is a subject that studies the chemical processes and substances that occur within living organisms. It involves the study of the chemical properties and reactions of biomolecules such as proteins, carbohydrates, lipids, and nucleic acids, and the molecular mechanisms by which these molecules interact to form cells, tissues, and organisms. Biochemistry is a multidisciplinary field that draws on concepts and techniques from biology, chemistry, physics, and mathematics.
Biochemistry focuses on understanding the structure, function, and regulation of biological molecules, including enzymes, receptors, transporters, and other macromolecules. It also involves the study of metabolic pathways, which are the interconnected sequences of chemical reactions that occur within cells and are responsible for the synthesis and breakdown of molecules needed for life.
Some of the areas of study within biochemistry include:
Biochemistry has many practical applications in medicine, agriculture, industry, and biotechnology. For example, biochemistry is used to develop new drugs, diagnose and treat diseases, improve crop yields, and produce new materials and chemicals. In addition, biochemistry is essential for understanding the basic processes of life and for addressing important questions in biology and medicine.
Biochemistry is one of the most difficult subjects, yet interesting subjects in medical school. We’ve explained all of the most effective methods to study Biochemistry to cut your study time in half and retain more to score the highest marks in your exams.
Creating a good learning environment allows you to maximize your learning efficiency. A combination of effective time management, good reading and note-taking skills, Illustration skills, creating effective test-taking strategies, and hard work will give you a productive outcome. Identify all of your environmental distractions that interfere with your concentration. STARVE YOUR DISTRACTIONS, FEED YOUR FOCUS! That’s the key to success.
Every professor is different in their teaching style. Some may give you study notes prior to lectures, so you can have a basic idea before you go to the lecture. Some professors require students to learn by themselves using textbooks and through research. If you have such professors, you can ask your seniors to see how they studied the subject.
Some professors give you homework and assignments based on the theories that are mainly assessed in the exams. So you should focus more on such topics and related questions.
There are actually a lot of resources available to you to make your studying endeavors easier. You should use all of the resources and a combination of learning techniques to maximize your studying effectiveness and reinforce the concepts in Biochemistry. You can take advantage of your class handouts, reading materials, and lab material your professor provides, and also there are many Online Study Resources & Notes that are accessible to students.
You can get access to our Medical Study Resources Library to get access to more than 570 medical presentations and all other medical resources that will be helpful for your entire career.
You can’t memorize the facts without understanding it. You can put all the mechanism in a flowchart and you can make study sheet for each clinical scenario. If you try to memorize the facts, you’ll forget them very easily. So you have to understand the physiological and pathological process that happens in the body.
You don’t remember everything you hear, but when you write down notes, it will help you retain more information. Sometimes you even don’t understand everything your professor teaches in the class. But when you get back to your home, you’ll understand it more clearly when you revise the notes you’ve taken. These notes will be so helpful in understanding the theories in books and your reading materials given by your institute.
Also, these notes are the secret behind scoring high marks in your exams. You can focus more on these notes before your exams and they will be useful to answer your MCQs from theories that are not covered in your reading materials.
Professors may also tell you memorizing techniques they have used, so when you write them down it will be more useful for you to revise the subject. Biochemistry is a difficult, yet an interesting subject. But taking good notes on your own will help you perform well in exams and in your clinical practice too.
Biochemistry is one of the largest subjects in medical, dental, and nursing courses. You can make different flashcards in the form of questions and answers on conditions you encounter when you anesthetize a patient. Flashcards made in the form of questions and answers will help you before the exams.
Make flashcards from chapters that are more important and topics that you tend to forget more easily. So it will make the revision much easier than going through the textbooks again and again.
Also, flashcards have a visual impact on your brain that will help you retain more information. Small theories like “complications of corpulmonale” or “pathophysiology of Myocardial Infarction” can be very good flashcards for your last-minute preparations. To support your theory, if you draw an occluded vessel with a thrombus to show myocardial infarction, that image will retain in your brain for years.
During my studies, I used to make beautiful flashcards that explains the pathophysiology and clinical presentation of each disease. I’ve made it a high-quality PDF eBook, so you can download online and print it yourself.
Making up study sheets for each exam can be very useful like flashcards. Using other resources like lecture notes, textbooks and flashcards, you can make a note in one page that should cover every important point of that chapter. So it will help you revise the note in a short time before the exams.
For example, if you’re making a study sheet on Ischemic Heart Disease, you can add more sub-sections like Stable Angina, Unstable Angina, Non ST Elevation Myocardial Infarction (NSTEMI) and ST Elevation Myocardial Infarction (STEMI), and you can add the pathophysiology of each in one page. So you can compare and understand the disease progress.
For me, mnemonics has played a great role in my medical career and great memory aids. In Biochemistry, you have to remember some medical terms that are very similar, so using mnemonics will help them remember separate. There are so many mnemonics available if you search on google about the topic you’re working on. Using Mnemonics will help you remember numerous facts in short period and you can use this simple technique for any subject in medicine from Anatomy to Surgery.
You can create your own mnemonics and write them down, so they’ll help you learn the particular chapter faster and easier. During my medical school period, I used a lot of mnemonics. You can download them as eBook.
When you study Biochemistry, you will come across many unique and difficult words that may be hard to remember them. Word associations will help you a lot in that process.
For instance, you can connect the words Thrombus and Embolus as,
I absolutely love these easy methods like mnemonics and word associations to study any subject. My friends always make fun of me for creating interesting mnemonics to remember hard topics, especially in pharmacology. But we never forgot them even after the exams. The’re long lasting methods to remember any chapter.
Figure out what learning style suits you well. This is not only for Biochemistry, but also for any subject in medical or nursing schools. Do Mnemonics, Flashcards work for you? Are you a verbal learner? Most students are a combination of learning styles, so you have to figure out your suitable learning style to be more effective. Then maximize your study efforts in your own way to score high. If rewriting notes don’t work then don’t use them. If flash cards helps you remember, then do that!
I recommend this for every lecture, so you can listen to something you may have missed during the lecture. So if you’re allowed to record the lecture, you can try this method. Recording your lectures will help you revise it again. You can listen to them in your free time to boost your knowledge. This will definitely help in the process of memorizing the important theories, discussed in the lectures.
But do not focus too much on recording and listening to it again. Listen to the lecture and try to make a note during the lecture itself. Because if you try to make a note after coming to the home, you’re spending your time twice. Because time management is very important in medical school.
Studying Biochemistry is not just like reading a storybook. Active study techniques are very important, especially when it comes to learning about human the pathophysiological processes that happen inside our body.
It takes so much of your time when you study a complicated subject like Anesthesiology. So you have to listen to your professor lecturing, use reading materials, books, flowcharts, short notes etc.
You don’t always understand the facts the very first time, especially in complex subjects like Biochemistry. So for some students working in groups can be of benefit. Sometimes having your friends to give you explanations for the complex pathophysiological process or quiz you or discuss past papers can help you retain more and more. At the same time, having a group of friends for studies will keep you motivated to study. Peer teaching has been found in studies to be very effective in helping retain more material.
The more you learn, you’re more likely to forget many complex mechanisms. So what you should need to keep everything that you’ve learned on your mind is to repeat what you’ve learned again and again. You can revise your notes daily, weekly or monthly, but repetition is essential to sharpen your knowledge.
Test your knowledge again and again. You can make your own questions with your friends and quiz each other or use past papers or model papers provided by your institute or teachers. This is a must-do activity if you want to score high marks, because you exactly know what you’re supposed to study.
Truth is, when you do self review and when you make a mistake, if you correct it by your reference materials then you’re very unlikely to forget it. So always pay extra attention to what you got wrong.