know your meds!...or else!

[cgilmour26]

So everyone Ive spoken to about taking the NCLEX said the amount of med questions was unbelievable! We just started med in my LPN course and to be honest...Im worried. Im already overwhelmed and worried that I will never get it! Any suggestions on sites that may be of help to study meds/classifications/generic/trade etc? Thanks!

[FowLaf24/7]

It is important to have a good working knowledge of medications. When administering medications, my preceptor instructs me to provide the patient with the purpose of each (five words or less)... I believe I benefited through my semesters of writing out all my medication I was going to give during my nursing clinical hours.

I know it sounds like a lot of work( it was) but I now have the ability to identify most of the common medications. If I come across one I do not recognize, I look it up with the hospital's computer website.

This is not a task which is not "doable" Start now, and you will have one less headache to deal with when hitting the hospital floor and when one's patient asks: What is this for?

[1234student]

Trying writing out each med on a index card....like the classification, action, side effects, any important assessments that need to be done along with the medication, and any other important details that are needed (for example the medication must be taken with food to decrease GI irritation) That way you can study them when ever and they are always in one place, in a simple from rather than flipping through and book and picking through information!

[Meriwhen, ASN, BSN, MSN, RN]

Also try studying the families of drugs, as most drugs in the same family have similar actions, effects and side effects. This doesn't mean that the drugs in that family all work identically, but if a drug is say, a beta-blocker, you'll have a general idea of how the drug works and what to look (and look out) for.

[Coop_696]

My first year clinical practice teacher gave us the best advice in regards to getting to know the drugs - Buy an address/telephone book (small so u can take it with you) and everytime you come across a new drug/one you use commonly jot it down in there with a few brief notes about it i.e. class, what's it for, side effects and contraindications oh and also normal dosage rates!

Fantastic way to make it stick in your head and it's like a personalised drug guide :-) (Plus I'm sure the RNs will look kindly on you if they see you putting in a little bit of extra effort researching and writing up the med!)

[9livesRN, BSN, RN]

what worked for me was one of those pharm phlash med cards, and i would just pull drugs out and read them randomly for a couple of weeks, then i started pulling it out, and trying to guess the information!!!

the cool thing is whever i am giving a med per say, Lasix, in my mind a yellow card comes up and i can picture that it is not a potassium sparring diuretic, it is a loop one, that we have to watch k, monitor I&O's and joint pain is one of the signs of toxicity... etc

so i kinda used image to remember my drugs! another thing that i loved, is that mosby makes a pocket pharm book ilustrated, with funny drawings, that you will not forget, and they target the important info per say, on flagyl they have all the drug info with a drawing of a guy pucking because he drank some beer (disulfiram like side effects)... so things like that helps me remember!