Which Drug Guide?

Nursing Students General Students

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Hi, I am just starting the clinical portion of a Diploma program and we start the actual clinicals in one week. I need to purchase a drug guide and I am having difficulty picking which one to get. My clinical instructor hasn't been very helpful - she just said to get the one I like best. So, I went to the book store and looked through a couple of them and decided that I wanted to get one online because the prices are better, but (since I am having problems remembering anything lately...) I don't remember which one I liked best - actually they all pretty much looked the same to me and I didn't know (since I have never used one before) which of the different features would be better for clinical prep... So... I decided to ask this question here. I did look through some of the really long posts about what to get for nursing school, but I didn't see recommendations on which guide was better and why...

So, from any experienced students/nurses - which one do you like best and why? (also, if there is one to REALLY avoid, that would be helpful, too!) My instructor did say don't get a PDR. But that was it for advice.

THANKS!

Specializes in Neuro.

My school recommended the Prentice Hall Nurse's Drug Guide. I like it because it includes all the basic drug info (action, effect, use) plus dosing info, interactions (drug, food and herbal) and nursing implications like assessment and patient teaching. It also comes with a mini-CD that lets you download the drug guide to your PDA, and you can also access the entire drug guide through their website (which I find helpful if I have to regurgitate drug info for a clinical prep.. can just cut and paste rather than retyping all the information).

Specializes in med/surg, telemetry, IV therapy, mgmt.

I am a practicing nurse that has been using Mosby's Nursing Drug Reference for years. I get a new updated one every year. I like this one because it lists all the drugs alphabetically by their generic names. I can find a drug in the index by it's brand name. However, if I know the generic name of a drug, like a dictionary, I only need to find it in it's alphabetical place in the book. Some of the drug handbooks list medications by their drug classifications. So, if you don't know what class a drug belongs to you're going to have a harder time finding it in a book like that.

The one our school required lists drugs by class first then alphabetical and I was not too keen on this so I bought a used Lippincotts 2006 Nursing Guide for real cheap as the 2007 must have just come out. I think it cost me 11.00 and it has everything just alphabetical.

For drugs not listed, I go to the internet now and do a search if need be.

Good luck!

I own both Davis's and Mosby's. I prefer Davis's and the computer program (drug lookup) that comes with it.

Specializes in Med/Surg.

Mine's at work but I am pretty sure it was prentice hall. It has pictures of pills on the front and mine is the 2005 version. I also have the newest edition of the Davis drug guide. I prefer the prentice hall though.

Specializes in Junior Year of BSN.

Is there anymore out there that have cd's or something that you can download to your PDA also besides Prentice? I would like to have a book to compliment my PDA.

I'm a Davis's girl, myself.

Specializes in L&D, PACU.

Davis has a great PDA version, and if you buy it at skyscape you can get a free version for your computer at the same time. I like the PDA version because it has a pediatric dosing calculator built into it.

I like Davis over the Prentice Hall because in my very first year in school, a question came up in class about something fairly important (was it dig? can't remember) Anyway, the Prentice Hall had the normal dosage wrong...its decimal point was off. Its an older one now, so I'm sure they fixed it, but I got used to my Davis and I'm a creature of habit.

Specializes in Med/Surg <1; Epic Certified <1.

We use Davis's for our school....I like it just fine now that I've learned to navigate it a bit...

No CD in it, but it does mention in the back of the book something about there being a CD version available....shop at: www.fadavis.com. Probably good to check it out there....

Specializes in Almost everywhere.

I like Davis's

Wow!! Thanks for so many replies!

I have two VERY old nursing drug guides - I forgot about a year ago I bought a box of misc nursing books on eBay. I thought that I would read through some of the old books before I started the clinical classes - but the box ended up on the attic steps forgotten about until yesterday. There were two drug guides from the 90s in them. One was a Davis from he 1990's and one was a Nursing 2000. I looked through them and have definitely decided against the Nursing 2007 because that's the one that goes by classification.

One thing that I liked in the Davis was that I saw potential nursing diagnoses for each drug. Is that feature still in the Davis Drug Guides?

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