Pharmacology class

[Elven_RN, ASN, RN]

So I opted to not take pharmacology over the summer and it was all filled up anyway. I am enrolled for the fall semester class, however since it's a corequiste for the next semester, it means that if I fail it, I fail out of the program.

I started taking a pharmacology class online (Straighter Line) with the hopes that my school will accept it. Although I'm getting excellent grades in it, I feel like I'm not learning all that much. The textbook gives tons of information and without a teacher, I'm left to not know what I need to focus on. Open book testing is nice, but coupled with no teacher, I feel like it's too easy.

Even if my school does accept the course, I will not be fully satisfied with not having all of the information I need to be an adequate nurse.

Since I basically have to teach myself in this course, does anyone have any tips for how I should be studying and what I should be focusing on? I know that for pharm, you're supposed to know therapeutic ranges, doses, drug names, etc. But there are TONS of drugs listed...am I really expected to know all the details about each one including all of the doses?

I feel overwhelmed. I would greatly appreciate feedback. Thank you!

[Rionoir, ADN, RN]

In my pharm class we don't need to know any of that, we study CLASSES of drugs and important side effects and such. I'd be shocked if your school gave you credit for your online class. It's actually not a bad class - it's more straight forward than most other theory courses.

[lyndsay5530]

I'm confused....if you are signed up for Fall semester, (if you are referring to the pharmacology class, that is) why are you continuing with this online class? The thought of any nursing student relying on teaching themselves pharmacology is frightening. This is a MAJOR component of nursing, and you should be able to quickly know what class a drug belongs in, how it works, what affects it, lab values if applicable, and how it can affect the body (side effects, toxicity, etc).

You don't need to memorize ALL information on ALL drugs, but you learn them instead by major classes. Just knowing the suffix of a drug for example can help you class it immediately (-olol, mide/zide, -pril, -statin etc). You usually learn about it this way because the drugs that belong in the same group usually work similarly, have very similar side effects/toxicity, and so on and so forth. It's like a human family. You all kind of look and behave alike. Once you learn the class, you learn a general/major list of drugs in that group. Then you move on to the next one, etc. etc. After a while you would be surprised how many drug names you know anyway, and if you have never heard of it, just knowing the name you will probably be able to place it in a class right away and therefore have some common background knowledge about it.

Just stick to your college's course and learn it all with an instructor. I can't imagine why any school would accept an outside course for something like that, just never heard of such a thing.