Pharmacology and the NCLEX

Nursing Students Student Assist

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My program has a specific class for pharm (which I passed YAY). Problem is though I don't really feel like I will be able to recall this information. When I spoke with my instructor I asked if she had any tips on retaining this information and expanding it for when the times comes to take the NCLEX and she told me not to worry about that (the NCLEX) and to just focus on my upcoming classes.

:facepalm: Welll that is not going to help so I've kept all my notes and I have my pharm text book, and my regular drug book. My question is how did you continue to keep up with and study the drugs you're supposed to know for the big day? Did you just go over a little when you got the chance, or what? I need some help figuring out a way to organize such a great deal of information.

Going through my NCLEX study book there is just SO much to learn and I feel like many of the diseases I have already covered I couldn't name even one drug for.

Thank you!

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you don't say what semester you're in, so I'm going to guess you're somewhere in the beginning of the program?

Your professor is kind of correct, don't stress too much about them right now. When you hit clinicals it's going to become much more clear, you'll be giving some meds so you'll need to understand those (we did med sheets for every drug we gave). You'll get to become VERY familiar with many many drugs

you can have note cards of your drugs and then when you give them and understand a med/med grouping set aside those cards and keep doing that as you learn and then when you're ready to graduate you'll see just how many meds you actually know through practice.

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I'm 2nd semester. We, too, are required to make drug cards for those that we pass at clinical. :)

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Specializes in Critical Care, ED, Cath lab, CTPAC,Trauma.

a member of AN made drug cards to share.....follow this link....Pharmacology Flashcards

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Specializes in Pedi.

I think I got one drug question on NCLEX.

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I think I got one drug question on NCLEX.

Really?! Thats good to hear. Thank you. Thanks Esme for the drug cards, I've been using them. :)

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Specializes in Pedi.
Really?! Thats good to hear. Thank you. Thanks Esme for the drug cards, I've been using them. :)

Yes, really. It was a psych drug question. I only got one med math question too. The vast majority of my questions were prioritization.

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Specializes in hoping for the ER/ED.

We learn ours by drug classes such as anti-diabetics then break those down to oral and insulin or for HTN meds we broke those down to beta blockers "olol's", ARB's=tans, ACE=prils and so on. We also use ATI and do their practice tests and ATI focused mostly on adverse and interactions (at least for me). Good luck! I graduate in 3 semesters and I am counting down!

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Honestly the medications just become a part of you. You will see disease processes in theory and clinical where the according treatments will show up. By the time you've taken all adult health classes I was told you should be able to simply look at a patient's med list and know generally what's going on. Pretty true.

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I think I would echo your instructor's comments...

The drugs that you see and use are the drugs that you will remember... and I only got a couple of drug questions on the NCLEX.

That said, throughout my nursing school program, I regularly reviewed the drug cards that I posted here on AN.

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Specializes in Critical Care, ED, Cath lab, CTPAC,Trauma.
Really?! Thats good to hear. Thank you. Thanks Esme for the drug cards, I've been using them. :)
they aren't mine they are ♪♫ in my ♥
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