How to Memorize Drugs

[MBar1, RN]

Hello, I am a third year nursing student. I was wondering if someone had a formula for the best way to memorize/understand medications. I understand what majority of the drug classes do in terms of mechanism of action, however, simply knowing what a medication does simply by looking at the name continues to screw me up.

I have been reviewing common -suffix categories, however a lot of drugs overlap.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

[Dani_Mila, BSN, RN]

At school they told us to learn by class. Most drugs has the same suffixes. For example, all the -lol are Bet blockers or -pril are ACE