Best Way to Study for Pharm

[fadedstars34]

Over the holiday break I have a list of about 150 drugs to study for my med test that I have to take in January, so I will be eligible to pass medications. This is the one part of the course so far that I am very nervous about. Math is not my forte and I really struggle with it. I have to have a 95% on the test to be able to pass medications. So I can only get one wrong yikes!!

What is the best way to study pharm? Is it do do drug cards for all of the meds?

[9livesRN, BSN, RN]

it seems like the test you are talking about is the drug calculation test, which is in pharmacology, but has nothing to do with knowing the meds bud has so with calculating them right!

here is the formulas you will need the most:

desired (dose) x quantity (ml or mg..whatever the question say.)

_____________

available (dose)

***this is how you can calculate how many ml you give or how many tabs....

2 basic iv formulas that are easy to remember and you can use them a whole lot!

volume(to be infused) x factor (gtt/ml) = flow rate in gtt/min

______________________

time (minutes to be infused)

volume (ml) x 60 minutes = flow rate ml/h

____________ __________

time (minutes) 1 hour

.....

to be honest that is all that you should know by now.

of they ask for burn formula you can do

2-4 x weight in kilos x percentage of burned area (withouth the % sign)

and that is how you calculate for burned patients... ignore this if you dont need it!

_____________________

now, regarding pharmachology, you wont need to know it all before class starts so:

get a class of meds and read them, when you are done, read the other, when you finish... get another!

you can get some drug pharm flash cards in barns and noble! they are great and only 25 bucks!

[CRIMSON]

if it is the calculations test 1st thing to do is find out which calculations method is required by your program. some programs use the above (ratio/proportion) calculations method and other programs require dimensional analysis method. (mine does) if it is the da method the dimensional analysis by curren 2nd or 3rd edition will walk you through step by step and provide several practice tests. most important is to know which method is required.

good luck and if you have any other questions feel free to message me.