Help

Hello everyone i am 23 and in nursing school but i am having such a hard time with pharma its so much and i am getting stressed i have already failed once i dont know what to do i cant fail for me or my friend i read and read but it feels like it just does not go in any advice or support would help thank you

Try and learn the suffixes, for example 'Pril' will usually be an ACE inhibitor used a lot for HTN. 'lol' or 'olol' will usually be a beta blocker. 'azole' tends be an anti fungal, 'prazole' will usually be a proton pump inhibitor. Know the disease processes, and then learn most common meds for them and build from there. You can make it :)

Sadly pharm is a lot of horrific memorization. What helped me was making outrageous memory associations to remember certain things. I agree with the above poster as well. :)

In the student forum, there is a pinned thread with pharmacology flashcards that may help you out. Good luck!

I have not taken that course yet, but perhaps you could tell us what your study methods were so that experienced students and RNs can help you adjust your methods. Did you just read the material?

Right now i read the chapter several times use mneumoics and flash card.Learning the pre and suffixs is great but there are a lot that dont have common ones. Its Driving me nuts and becoming over whellming

I'm not typically a bug flashcard person, but used them a lot for pharm. I wrote things in different colors so I wasn't staring at a ton of black ink; e.g. indications in green, contraindications/special considerations in red, side effects in blue, etc.

Then I read, read, and read them some more -- aloud, for my auditory learning style.

It is a huge amount of memorization. No getting around that, I'm afraid.

I used many refrences, including classmates and workbooks, but I found google to be the best of help during pharm! I just googled 'how to remember med classes/med names' and took off from there. Also try remembering the prefixes/suffixes e.g. 'olol' = beta blockers. I found a very cute photo of a cat that helped me remember this and it said, "Deck the halls with beta blockers, olol olol olol olol olol olol olol!":) You've got this!

I learned pharm best when I actually began passing meds on actual people. Perhaps you can come up with some fake patients with multiple medical issues and make up some med lists for them with meds routes and dosages and include a teaching point.

An example could be:

Ms. Smith, 78 years old

Hospitalized for a broken hip and developed a urinary tract infection from her foley catheter

History of hypertension, diabetes, depression, dementia, constipation, and reflux

Now think of some meds she will need...