pharmacology in nursing school

[juji fruit]

How many of you had to take pharmacology as a prereq for your program? Our school does not require it and includes it within the nursing program. I find this frustrating as I have never heard of many of these drugs and think I would have benefited from atleast being introduced to them within classifications. Maybe I can get a petition going to replace chemistry for pharmacology as a nursing prereq :0). BTW, besides what we could probably learn in five minutes, why are we tourtured with chem, the hardest class many of us had to endure, when it's use withing nursing school (and I'm assuming nursing as a carreer), is so basic???? OK, that was off the subject. Just needed to vent :0). Back to the subject at hand, I would love to hear the insight all of you might have about the original subejct of pharmacology.

Court

[NurseDixie]

We had pharm in our first year of nursing school and the first semester of our second year. I feel that this is not enough. I think we should have a separate class. When we were in clinicals, there were lots of drugs I'd never heard of. We have to look them up the night before clinicals, but still I think we should've had a pharm class by itself.

[TinyNurse, RN]

The ADN prog I just graduated from included one quarter of pharm with the program. It mostly dealt with admin. and mech of action. Then the rest of the program, whatever disease process we studied, the drugs were incorporated. I felt this was difficult. Most of what I learned about meds was learned on clinical site.

jenni

[fnimat1]

Pharmacology isn't a requirement in the nursing program at my school although I do plan on taking it anyway as an audit course. I'm very interested in learning about the different drugs.

Fatima

[sashibeak]

I am currently taking Pharmacology online.

I don't start the nursing program until next month, and they offer it in the fall as part of the curriculum, but I wanted to get it out of the way beforehand!

I have no medical experience, and yes, it was a shock to the system, but I have really enjoyed the class and have learnt so much! I am hoping to get a B. Thank god for the internet....... it is a wonderful resource!! As well as the trusty Nurses' PDRs!!!

Good luck to you!

[essarge]

:chair: I remember Pharm very well! Half of our class literally failed it. It is very tough and, because it is such a dry subject, causes brain melt down relative to the memorization involved.

I feel that pharm is a must in any nursing program and have a hard time grappling with the fact that there are programs that do not require it......unless it is integrated into the program.

I for one would not want a nurse giving me meds who does not know what the med is for, the correct dosage etc!

[crispicritter]

At Texas Women's Univ. we had to take Pharm our first semester.

I found it difficult just because it was so intense.... and we had four other courses... including Patho, Nursing Experience, Therapeutics and another skills lab course (clinical included).

However, I also have a full-time job so I really found it difficult to squeeze all my study time in.

Pharm was tough... good luck!!!

Christie