Guides · 5 min
How to Take Better Notes During MBBS Lectures
Listen first, write less, structure always — a lecture method that doesn't leave you transcribing.
By Kuber Pujar · MBBS student, founder of Prescribed, creator of MedxKuber
Short answer
Take better lecture notes by writing structure, not transcription: capture the topic skeleton, definitions and diagrams the lecturer draws, and fill details from the standard textbook after class. One subject notebook per subject makes this possible.
The students with the best notes in a lecture hall are rarely the ones writing the most. Here's the method that holds up across a full year of 8 a.m. lectures.
Before the lecture
- Open the day's subject notebook to a fresh page — one notebook per subject means you always know where today's page belongs
- Write the topic heading and leave the rest blank
During the lecture
- Capture structure: headings, lists, and anything the lecturer draws or repeats
- Copy diagrams — even badly. Redrawing them later from your own version is the memory trick
- Don't transcribe. If a sentence is in the textbook, a keyword is enough
After the lecture
- Same day, spend ten minutes completing the page from the standard textbook
- Box definitions, underline the one line you'll need in the viva
- Flag the page if a concept still isn't clear — that's your question for the next class
Why unruled pages help in lectures
Lecturers think in flows and relationships, not paragraphs. Unruled pages let you place a flowchart exactly where it belongs instead of squeezing it between lines.