Need help w/PHARM!!!

rninme · Jul 5, 2006

Good morning. I don't recall that many pharm questions when I took NCLEX...some on psych drugs if I remember correctly. A few others but not many.

I bought med cards when in school....I think they were made by Davis...which is the drug guide that I used. Can't say they were helpful, more like a waste of money for me...but some of my classmates swore by them.

Daytonite, BSN, RN · Jul 5, 2006

hi, krissymichelle!

i'm a former resident of the dayton area! don't fret about the nclex. the questions are random. what one person has to answer on their nclex may be totally different from what you will end up getting. that kind of gossip about what kind of questions are on these exams never dies. when i was in nursing school 32 years ago the same kind of talk was going on. when i took my state board, i was hit with all kinds of questions about renal failure and one very enigmatic question about how many calories are in one liter of 5% dextrose in water which i will never forget. any drug questions i had were the kind of questions about the quirky things that stand out and that you should know about certain specific drugs. it will not be anything inane.

from the description you give it sounds like you'd do best to create your own drug cards. here are some internet sources that are free to help you out with that. please forgive me for just cutting and pasting it from another post i made to someone the other day. it helps when you have a patient who is on some of the meds you are making your cards on.

here is a link to a medication card constructor program. if you're any good at figuring out some of this technical stuff you can print out some fine drug cards for yourself. i just couldn't figure out how to get my printer to shrink the finished card down any smaller. i'm a neatnik, so i like programs like this that will crank out a nicely organized and printed form:

http://www.edruginfo.com/qthome.htm - e-druginfo.com's gateway page into medi-quik construct-a-card. you need to register, but it's free. you have to input all the information yourself. this constructor merely prints it onto a pre-formatted form. in playing around with the constructor i found that you could not go back otherwise you lost your input data. i was able to shrink the finished card down to about 7" x 5" but my printer didn't print any border, or perhaps i just didn't know how to apply a border or shrink the card down smaller.

www.drugs.com - at this site you find the drug you are looking for alphabetically and then information is brought up for you. there is information that is written for the general public (easier to understand, perhaps) and information for professionals that is often very similar if not the same entries that are in the pdr. this site has some of the same information printed in the pdr for some medications, but not all. you can check for the pdr information easily by scrolling down to the bottom of this home page and looking alphabetically in the pdr files. they also have some information from other professional sources.

http://www.globalrph.com/ - has drug listings, instructions for iv dilutions in mixing piggyback meds, you can search for specific drugs (uses rxlist.com), or chose the "drug table" button to get lists of medications arranged by categories. this is the only online pharmacy source that i have found where you can get lists of drugs arranged by their category like this. clicking on the infectious disease button takes you to an infectious disease database arranged by disease which give you listings of antibiotic choices that can be used for treatment. there are a number of medical calculators here including one to calculate drip rates on some of the commonly used icu medications. there are also links to a video library. scroll down to the bottom of this home page to find more links.

http://www.brooksidepress.org/products/military_obgyn/pharmacy/medications.htm - a huge list of medications you can link to for information. so far, this is the only online source of commonly used ob/gyn medications that i have found. from a military source for ob/gyn. bookmark this site because there is a lot of ob information here that you won't find elsewhere on the internet that may come in handy when you do your ob rotation. there is also a list of links to descriptions of ob procedures at this website.

http://www.drugstore.com/pharmacy/drugchecker/ - from drugstore.com you can input a list of drugs and then the site will return any drug interactions between those drugs.

the two things i miss about dayton are the killer brownies at the dorothy lane market and jungle jim's down in the cincinnati area. i loved shopping in either store. i am disappointed that killer brownies are never spot lighted on any of the food network programs because they are just about the best!

welcome to allnurses! :welcome:

truern · Jul 5, 2006

Word is the N-clex is majorly pharm content and the teacher we had last quarter completely downplayed the importance.

I had maybe 4 or 5 questions related to meds...two of them were meds I've seen numerous times and the others were some I'd never heard of. Four or five out of 75 questions is not "majorly". Relax!!!

maliat · Jul 5, 2006

No idea about the NCLEX since I'm just starting nursing school, but thought I could give you tips on studying since I already took pharm.

What I found worked best for me was to make tables. Usually I had names, what the drug was used for, mechanism of action, administration, side effects and any other information my instructors thought were important. I found that in a general class of medications like a list of pain medications, you really need to pay attention to how the medications are simular and how they are different. For instance, with side effects, pretty much everything gives you some type of GI problems, but it's unusual if the medication has the side effect of constipation.

Hope this helps.

Malia

KrissyMichelle · Jul 5, 2006

Thanks a lot for everyone's help! Maybe I am just being silly! I'm a smart girl, I can do this!! :wink2:

RN and Mommy · Jul 5, 2006

I had maybe 4 or 5 questions related to meds...two of them were meds I've seen numerous times and the others were some I'd never heard of. Four or five out of 75 questions is not "majorly". Relax!!!

Not all that many med questions for me either, maybe 4-6 like you said!

truern · Jul 6, 2006

Not all that many med questions for me either maybe 4-6 like you said![/quote']
The instructor at my Kaplan review said to spend maybe an hour reviewing the most common meds, but not to get caught up with something you're just not going to see that much of on the NCLEX. I'm pretty sure I missed those meds I'd never seen before and yet I passed