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Samuel Vaisrub, MD

JAMA. 1976;236(20):2322.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

We are often overawed by a candidate for office who never fails to follow-up his "nice to see you" with the name of each of the hundreds of potential supporters whose hands he shakes, and we are similarly impressed by his memory for numbers when he instantly answers all questions pertaining to budgetary matters with mathematical precision to a decimal point.

By contrast, the physician has a reputation for forgetting names and numbers. Patients often refer to him as an "absentminded professor." But they often forgive him such memory lapses because of his acknowledged memory for difficult terms— "acrodermatitis enterhepatica," "sulcus zygomaticomaxillaris," "mucormycosis," and like jawbreakers. With a mnemonic load like this, he can hardly be expected to remember numbers or personal names.

How true is this stereotype of the physician's memory?

A mind that can assimilate the American Pharmacopeia and can retain the number of each brain area, clotting . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

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