If you've taken pharmacology or pathophysiology...help

Music in My Heart · Jun 17, 2010

If you're determined to study over the summer then I'd advise that you focus on renal and cardiopulmonary physiology as well as the ANS... and the drug classes that interact with them.

CBsMommy · Jun 17, 2010

Do you have your pharm book? I would go through and see how the drugs act on the body, where they effect the body, etc. As I was going through my pharm class, I actually would have my anatomy book in front of me to go over the current system being talked about. For instance, if we were studying diuretics, I would have the kidney section open in my A&P book. It really helped me to review as I went along, to visualize where the certain diuretics worked. While there is a lot of memorization d/t drug names and such, if you understand how and where the drugs work on the body, you can pretty much tell what their side effects and their contraindications are.

My patho class was the same way. I had my A&P book open in front of me for that one too although I didn't need it as much.

I, too, worried that these two classes would be the hardest for me to get through and they really were not that bad! Pharm has been my favorite class thus far and patho went really good too. If I were you, I would find out what pharm book you are using and read the first 4-6 chapters. Good luck!

Mike A. Fungin RN · Jun 17, 2010

How about relaxing and enjoying your break?

MInurse.st · Jun 17, 2010

I agree with the above post :)

In my pharmacology book, every section had a review of the relevant physiology. I didn't really need to reference anything else.

For patho, I would say just make sure you keep your A&P book handy. I tried to sell mine, but they were using a new edition, so I couldn't get any money for it... That ended up being a good thing!

If you really want to review, I would suggest reviewing the renal and cardiovascular systems. They were big sections in my patho class, and very relevant to pharm.

starmickey03, MSN, RN · Jun 17, 2010

Im actually in both classes right now, and having them at the same time is tough for me especially since I have two other classes and am working 40 hrs/week. For me, patho takes up most of my time but it is really interesting. Im not sure which patho book you'll be using but my book has a chapter that goes over the physiology of different systems. For example the cardiovascular disease section of the book starts off with a cardiac physiology review chapter. So you dont necessarily need to brush up on anything because it will all be in your patho book, meaning you can review each physiology section when you get to the disorders of that section (make sense?).

As far as Pharm, I'd suggest reviewing some basic chemistry because that is a big part of pharm.

But honestly, you should really relax even though I know you dont want to hear that. I start my program in the fall too and now Im regretting taking these classes because I have absolutely no time for anything else and I know its only going to get worse in the fall.

If you do feel the need to catch up on things just do it for maybe 30 mins a day, dont let it consume you. I wish I wouldve taken the advice of current/past nursing students on this board when they said to relax before starting school ::sigh::

RNTutor, BSN, RN · Jun 18, 2010

I think it partly depends on how your patho teacher decides to teach it. When I took patho, my prof focused a lot on Cancer, to demonstrate that how things go wrong at a cellular level effects the kind of symptoms pt's have. So for me, it was most helpful to have a good understanding of the immune system (the different WBCs and what they each do), and the life cycle of body cells.

cheezwhiz · Jun 18, 2010

i'd go with physio over anatomy. cardiac physio especially. after that, maybe respiratory, nervous, endocrine, urinary. bones, not so much. i wouldnt go crazy with the details, however. just the basics.

Ashley-SDCVRN85 · Jun 28, 2010

I unfortunately had to take this class twice, but I do so at different schools, so I was able to get w pretty good idea overall of what needs to be reviewed.

I would suggest that your main focuses be on the endocrine and cardiac systems, since they are so complex and there are so many side effects from their diseases.

I found that if you memorize the pathway of blood through the heart, that will pretty much guide you with identifying the diseases according to the symptoms displayed in most case studies. The endocrine system is very important to really know because there are so many common diseases associated with this system and knowing the normals will help you immensly when studying.

I personally found the immune system in Patho very easy to understand and I'm sure if you spent much time studying in A&P that it will come back to you fairly quickly, but a light review never hurts.

Also, I would recommend that while you are taking this class you find another pathophysiology review book that breaks down the basics of each disease as well as gives you test questions with rationales.