Monday, October 3, 2016

Microbiology: mnemonics, Baitisj-style

This post is primarily for medical students.

My brain doesn't work well with normal mnemonics, so I have to create sentences that use multiple letters from the organisms.

Aerobic bacteria:
Mona's heart and lungs need air.
  • Pseudomonas
  • Nocardia (cardia = heart)
  • Mycobacterium (infest the lungs), good enough for me
Anaerobes:
Ana's mice fuse bacteria and robes together in her closet.
  • Actinomyces
  • Fusobacterium
  • Bacteroides
  • Clostridium
Obligate intracellular:
Outside, it was rilly cold and chlammy, so I went inside because I needed to ATPee with my rilly chlammy cox.
(needs host ATP)
  • Rickettsia
  • Chlamydia
  • Coxiella
Facultative intracellular:
I listened in as the facultative French Legion pestered my nice salmon brood.
  • Listeria
  • Francisella
  • Legionella
  • Yersinia pestis
  • Neisseria
  • Salmonella
  • Brucella
 Catalase-positive:
Because she was Aspergers at heart, Mona Ecolied (coiled) her candid list around her serrated cattle-staff instead of her helical book-holder.
  • Aspergillus
  • Nocardia
  • Pseudomonas
  • E. coli
  • Candida
  • Listeria
  • Serratia
  • Burkholder
  • Helicobacter pylori
Urease-positive: (this is the only acronym that works for me.)
Struvite stones? PEe CHUKSS!
  • Staph. epidermidis
  • Proteus
  • Cryptococcus
  • H pilori
  • Ureaplasma
  • Klebsiella
  • Staph. saphrophyticus

Encapsulated bacteria:
Jesus (GBS)! Mona klubbed HIs nice, pnew-ly-colied salmon capsule.
  • Group B Strep
  • Pseudomonas
  • Klebsiella
  • Haemophilus influenzae (type B)
  • Neisseria meningitidis
  • Strep. pneumoniae
  • E. coli
  • Salmonella