How do you read?

There's no physical way possible to take all the notes you'd need for pharm. I did note cards (still do as I'm studying for the NCLEX) for some stuff, but there's no way to remember every single thing, and especially for pharm, there's SO much to know. You'll figure out how to organize the meds (class, indications, etc), which will help some. As you learn more about the disease processes, you'll understand more about the mechanisms of action and why the side effects are what they are.

Honestly, most nursing school reading is skimming. They really do pile on the reading (as in, OMYGODHOWWILLIEVERREADALLOFTHIS???). It's a common theme, and you will find what works for you.

A quick and dirty way, is to start with the summaries and the review Qs&As.

That should give you an overview of the chapter. You can go back and review what you want in detail afterwards.

I am taking an online course in Pharmacology this summer. I am right there with you on the reading...the information is so dense that you are afraid you are going to miss something that is going to be important. My textbook is like 900 pages, I think, and I can not see a possible way of making it through the whole thing. I just read through the chapter and then go back and make note cards on what I think are major points. We have an Advanced Pharmacology course in our program, so I am hoping that this text is going to be divided up between the two course??

Our book is 1400 pages and it's an 8 week course ?

Read the book this way - what is the disease, what are the symptoms to look for, and the nursing process to handle it. Once you can filter out the stuff that you don't need (note: I said 'stuff you don't need' ie for your lecture, not 'stuff you don't need as a nurse' because anything and everything in that book is what you need), you can start prioritizing your information. There is no way you can remember everything, and the trick to nursing school is knowing what your program wants you to know from each chapter, not everything in each chapter.

The best analogy is math class - are you going to try to study everything in that math book, or are you only studying the stuff the teacher is going over? You will find that sometimes the lecture provides more info than the book, and sometimes it's the opposite. But the guarantee is that the info will cross streams and you will have a solid infor of the material one way or another. The hard part is now remembering that info. You thought you had filtered out all of the things you didn't need so you could remember only the stuff you needed? Well, it's still a lot of info.