Pharm tips

let me guess, they started you out with the autonomic nervous system and the drugs that affect it, right? those are epinephrine, norepinephrine, adrenergics, cholinergics, adrenergic blockers, and beta blockers. does this make some sense? as you study them you begin to realize that they are opposites of each other. i've been an rn for many years, but had to re-take pharmacology for a new degree i am working on. what i did was start a little chart for each of these categories. i listed the action, use, side effect, and the names of the various drugs included in that category (included information about their use and anything special about them). some ran to two pages. after the autonomic nervous system it gets better. i used my textbook, nursing drug reference (the first part of it has information about the various drug classifications) and the web sites i'm listing below.

it really helps to keep reading this information over and over from your textbook, a nursing drug reference and these web sites. don't do it all in one sitting. give your brain time to digest the information. if you can figure out some way to help you memorize the information, such as a mnemonic you can devise, do it. for me, making the charts was my biggest help. our instructor also posted self-exams provided by the textbook authors that pretty much tested the reading from the textbook.

• http://www.pharmacology2000.com/learning2.htm - an online "textbook" of pharmacology. without a doubt my favorite site.
  
• http://www.kumc.edu/research/medicine/pharmacology/cai/menu1.htm - this is an online tutorial on pharmacology from the university of kansas medical center
  
• http://www.globalrph.com/druglist.htm - drugs arranged by category. scroll down the page to get to the drug categories.