PHARMACOLOGY HELP!

[EMMIESMOM]

I am in my second semester (LPN) and they said if you could make it through the 1st semester the rest would be a breeze, I don't know who they were kidding! My second semester is killing me, I am so tired and so stressed, some nights I just cry on the way home from school. I work full time, have a family and go to school 4 nights a week with clinicals on Saturday. Okay.....enough of the venting!

Does anyone at all have any ideas or help on how to get through Pharmacology, to remember all of the drug classes and what they do, I have typed notes, done flash cards, done just about everything I can think of, any help would be appreciated and if you don't have anything nice to say, then please don't say anything at all. :)

Thanks in advance for any advice!!!

[shananigansWI]

I'm finding pharm to be a challenge too, so much info and almost all of it new to me. I just took the second exam of the semester in my pharm class, got an 81. That was the class average, so I shouldn't be so disappointed I guess, but honestly I think that's the lowest grade I've gotten on an exam since I started taking my prereqs. I think I need to devote more time drilling, writing up study notes, flashcards, visual aids, etc. Learning common suffixes can help, but there's always a ton of drugs we have to just straight up memorize the name, class, indications, contraindication, interactions, mechanism of action, blah blah blah. I'm going to be so happy when pharm is over!

[nurseprnRN, BSN, RN]

suggest you get a really good drug info book, a nursing drug handbook, and get in the habit of reading a few pages every time you sit down for breakfast, break, or lunch. so many people rely on the net for a quick knowledge fix that their brains have actually lost some capacity for retaining information, sorta like how sesame street (which has an average camera pan of something like less than 6 seconds) is worse for children's attention span than mr. rogers (whose slower pace and fewer scene changes promote attention). this will help you.

read. pick one system at a time and read the meds for that system, see why they are prescribed and how they work for that system, explain it to yourself, really get into it by system, and then the next time you see a patient with that system, see how they work and why.

[shananigansWI]

I have Nursing Central on my phone, which includes Davis's Drug Guide. I often use this in clinical and to look up any drugs I don't know as I come across them. It's also useful for reference information when writing up pharm study material. I read quite a few entries a day that way, it's pretty handy.

[watersamy]

Try the Davis' "Pharmacology Success" book.