NCLEX Pharmacology? What to study, how much to study

firefly84 · Jan 29, 2015

Honestly, your going to need to know the major highlights of each category initially. Pharmacology is one of the biggest components of nursing practice, along with gut instinct! My advice to nursing students who have been at clinicals, is to look every drug up that you don't know.

It doesn't matter that the doctor ordered it, you need to know what you are giving. You might catch something that is a contraindication and save your patient, or at the very least added another medication into your mind bank.

But by knowing the major highlights of each category will give you a good baseline to start with. Many categories will have drugs with the same suffixes and prefixes and that helps to immediately identify what class you are dealing with. Beta blockers end in -olol (labetolol, nadolol); fluoroquinolone antibiotics end in -floxacin (levofloxacin, moxifloxacin).

Just giving a couple examples. But, I would definitely learn the suffixes/prefixes for drug categories as well. It makes identification a lot quicker. There are always exceptions to the rules with some meds, but this works a large majority of the time.

Good luck with your accelerated program! You will learn something new everyday for the rest of your career. One more piece of advice, always listen to your gut instinct, and always be a little nervous. You will pay a lot closer attention to the little things and be able to stop them early from turning into big problems.

nisoJ · Jan 29, 2015

Thank you so much for your advice and kind words! You sound like you're a great nurse and love what you do :)

RunBabyRN · Jan 29, 2015

You'll just need to know the classes, how to calculate dosages, some side effects, things like that. Really, the drug-specific questions I had on the NCLEX were nothing is ever seen before, even though I studied my butt off. It is impossible to know every drug, plain and simple.

In school (and in practice), you'll see a lot of the same drugs over and over again, and you'll need to know class, mechanism of action, indications, contraindications, side effects/adverse effects, route, dosage, those kinds of things. I wouldn't stress too much yet. Take it all as it comes, and break it all down. I am no pharm buff by any means, but you have resources available to you in school and in practice.

nisoJ · Jan 29, 2015

Is pharm the class you'd say took up the most of your time and effort? Is there another class you'd recommend doing summer prep for?

Also: The program pamphlet also said taking biochemistry before would be a good idea...Is this because you do biochemistry in Nursing school? Or is it just supposed to help you understand pharm stuff? Biochemistry wasn't required for a bio major at my school so I never took it...

firefly84 · Jan 30, 2015

My program, although not accelerated, required microbiology and organic chemistry as prerequisites. They were challenging, especially the microbiology, but once you get into your nursing classes it will make perfect sense why.

The biochemistry recommendation for your program sounds like a combo class. It will help with explaining not just how and why meds work, but should also get into the chemical basis of how our bodies work. This class would be a nice foundation to be able to refer to, especially when it comes to any of the pathophysiology in your nursing classes.

RunBabyRN · Jan 30, 2015

We didn't have a separate pharm class- it was incorporated into our other courses. It's hard to know what you should prep for. In your time off, enjoy the break. Your program will likely give you assignments that are due by the first day of class, anyway.