Help with Cardiac Meds

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Can someone please tell me how they learned all the Cardiac meds during Nursing School.

I am in Nursing IV and we are studying Cardio right now, first test has all the cardiac meds.

It's so confusing, so many catagories and subcatagories. Can anyone give me some advice to make this easier so that I can learn them. HELP!

Bea

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hey!

i’m not sure if this would be helpful to you but the way i remember some of the cardiac medications is by knowing the ending letters for example 'ril' and 'lol'

the more you practice, the more familiar they will appear. it takes time to adjust and understand the medications. always utilize the intranet within the hospital or current medication books to look up meds.

quick run down of it….

anticoagulants (blood thinners): most common ones: dalteparin (fragmin), danaparoid (orgaran), enoxaparin (lovenox), heparin (there are various ones out there), tinzaparin (innohep), and warfarin (coumadin)

angiotensin-converting enzyme (ace) inhibitors: use for improvement of cardiovascular conditions such as high blood pressure and heart failure. common ones you might have seen on your unit would be: lisinopril (prinivil, zestril), moexipril (univasc), perindopril (aceon), quinapril (accupril),benazepril (lotensin), captopril (capoten), enalapril (vasotec), fosinopril (monopril), ramipril (altace) and trandolapril (mavik)

easiest way to remember ace inhibitors is their ending of 'ril'. it depends on the hospital whether they use brand or generic names of medications. however most do use brand names or both on medication labels.

angiotensin ii receptor blockers (or inhibitors): common ones being: irbesartan (avapro),

losartan (cozaar), telmisartan (micardis) and valsartan (diovan), candesartan (atacand), eprosartan (teveten)

these usually have the "tan"...i just picture myself in a hot summer day trying to get a tan...something along that anyway.

beta blockers: bisoprolol/hydrochlorothiazide (ziac), propranolol (inderal), sotalol (betapace) and timolol (blocadren), acebutolol (sectral), bisoprolol (zebeta), carteolol (cartrol), metoprolol (lopressor, toprol xl), nadolol (corgard), atenolol (tenormin), betaxolol (kerlone)

beta blockers with the brand names have 'lol' ending…it was always easy for me to remember it by this as a lot of msn conversations contain lol this and that…hopefully it makes sense to you! (lol;) )

calcium channel blockers: bepridil (vascor), diltiazem (cardizem, tiazac), felodipine (plendil), nifedipine (adalat, procardia), nimodipine (nimotop),amlodipine (norvasc, lotrel), nisoldipine (sular) and verapamil (calan, isoptin, verelan)

some of these end with “ine”…but many other different medications do so i would be careful until knowledge or familiarity is gained.

best thing to always do is ask when you don't know and look up medications...never assume you know or 'think' you know. medication errors are serious and do result in complications if nurses/other health care professionals are not careful in understanding side effects, reason for giving medications and any other issues that may come up. remember that your patients will ask you what the medications are....so be prepared (or have resources to access). it is a learning process, no one expects or should expect you to know thousands of meds by your final year.

good luck and enjoy your learning stages:d

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I would highly HIGHLY reccommend a book by mosby called "pharmacology memory note cards"...not only did it help me throughout nursing school it really helped me for my nclex. It is only 27 bucks, it has a lot of mnemonics and awesome cartoons, and it is great for visual learners. For example the way i learnt cardiac meds using this book is that most ACE inhibitors end in "-ril" for example enalapril, linisopril, ramparil....beta blockers end in "-olol" such as metropolol, atenolol, Nadolol...When i think of the commonly used calcium channel blockers i think of VAN-D (like van diesel the actor) and they are Verapamil, Amlodipine, Nifedipine and dilitazem...What you need to understand is how ACE inhibitors, beta blockers, calcium channel blockers work; drugs that fall under each category pretty much act the same. Anyway i hope this helped and try to get the book it you can, its really good.

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Here's something that helped me:

BB makes me LOL (Beta Blocker)

CC is such a DIP (Calcium Channel Blocker)

Aabe is a SINner (can also be ZIN) (Alpha Adrenergic Blocker)

ACE is a real PRIL (like pill) (Angiotensin Converting Enzyme Inhibitor)

Then all you have to learn is what each class does, learn the stem in each drug name, and you're good. I will never forget that AmloDIPine is a calcium channel blocker!

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Thank you so much for your great reply. I will definitly use that!

Now that I have the endings down to remember the names... It's just remembering what they do!!!!!!!

AAahhhhhhhh, I am so overwhelmed! Can I really do this???

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Specializes in School Nursing and Sports Medicine.

Try this pdf file. http://two.xthost.info/pinoynurse1/Review%20Notes%20in%20Pharmacology%20-%20NCLEX.pdf

it helped me a lot back in college. :)

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Specializes in Cardiac Telemetry, ED.

Making my own flash cards and drawing my own diagrams helped me totally ace my cardiac exam.

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