Memorialization: A Learned Skill or an Inborn Talent?

Abstract

Although it is often said that we tend to forget unhappy memories, many linger on. For instance, how well I recall what was for me an agony during medical school of memorizing the TCA cycle, the brachial plexus, and the bones of the wrist! I somehow dealt with it at the time, but ask me to repeat them now and I couldn’t begin to do it. On the other hand, it is true that I can still recall a few bars of Mozart sonatas I learned when I was even younger, but I’d fare much better sitting down and sight-reading the same previously memorized works. It has always been frustrating for me to recognize and accept that, long before I attained my current age, memorizing was not one of my strong points, especially compared with some of my colleagues who seemingly did it with great ease and even satisfaction. Ease of memorization appears to be in part an innate skill and, I’m sure, like other such skills, can be enhanced by training. There is also selective memory. Like many of my medical colleagues I can predictably recall a given patient’s pathology but much less readily his or her name. Lucky for us that we went into medicine and not into politics!