How is everyone memorizing drugs??

[Melissace]

I need some helping remembering all these drugs, their categories and their side effects!! What does everyone do to help memorize these??

[HeartJulz]

you cannot memorize drugs!!! you have to take about 5 a day and go over them consistently.. first you need to know what the drug is USED for. and hit the most life threatening s/e. First go in a category like cardio. try doing beta blockers, ACE, etc til you have 5. try reverse like a condition of cardio. A fib for instance and which drugs are used for that .. sometimes if you reverse it helps and also try no moe than 5 a day ..memorizing does nothing because think of when you are a nurse and you are administering these drugs, it is imp. to know what they are used for and why your patient needs them! good luck ..

[doglvr]

Memorizing medications is hard.. it can be overwhelming. Because of this, I make sure during clinical whatever meds I'm giving I know everything about those meds. Little by little, without even noticing it I'm learning so much! And also without a doubt I would classify the drugs like Julz said. This will help you understand them more.

Another option to consider is if you have a pharm class I would consider recording the lectures (if your instructor allows it.) Personally, I can't learn anything in class, I get distracted very easily so I find it best to record my lectures, go home and listen to it over and over again. Although it is time consuming, it really does help so much! There are so many little hints that my professors give out that I never noticed before because I was always so focused on copying notes.

Just remember, don't focus on memorizing, you need to learn them and understand how each med works!

Good luck!! :paw:

[future L&Dnurse]

This may be unpopular, but I don't memorize drugs. I definitely study them and try to remember them, and with every patient assignment I've had I look them up beforehand and make note of the side effects, mechanism of action, etc. But I still look them up again before I give them, because I don't trust my memory alone to prevent a med error and it's worth the extra minute to double check.

Not that this is necessarily helpful for exams where you can't double check, but in a way it helps because the more you read the information, the more you internalize it. I do memorize more for exams, if I know specific meds are going to be on the exam thanks to study guides or discussion in class, but I still prefer to look them up if I'm actually going to be putting them into somebody's body.