What did you do to be successful in Pharmacology for the ADN program?

[kimmyanne02]

I took pharm in the PN program and now I'm in pharm for the RN program. I have read that learning the drugs by their classification is the best way to learn the information. What I am confused about is some drugs can be broken down into smaller classifications. For example, antianginals can be further classified to nitrates, beta blockers, and calcium channel blockers. Do you focus on knowing about the antianginal drug class, or the other ones that I mentioned? Thank you! 😊

[ICUnurseEst2015, ADN, BSN]

I am a senior in nursing school and still have trouble with some meds. For myself, practice helps. Being exposed to meds in the hospital is what helps me. It's difficult to just sit, read a book and memorize the meds so take advantage when you're at your clinical site, look up every single med. I look up meds that are and would be prescribed to my pt based on his diagnosis. I'm actually studying antianginals right now. I memorized already the classifications of calcium channel blockers, nitrates, etc. in previous semesters and now that I am studying cardiac, I am learning which ones are antianginals. I learned yesterday that diff meds will be prescribed based on the pt's needs. For example, if the pt is allergic to nitrates, then what would u expect the provider to order? Calcium channel blockers or beta blockers. They both decrease heart work load causing a decrease in oxygen demand thereby relieving angina. B-blockers lower heart rate, BP, and heart contractility and CCBs to the same plus dilate peripheral and coronary arteries. Point is, don't try only memorizing, apply to real pt scenarios and research all your pts so that when u are tested, it will come naturally.

[jegroat]

We had to learn them by their broken down classifications. As far as antihypertensives go for remember the names of the medications they can be grouped together by the last letters. For example the -lol (metropolol or carvidilol) are beta blockers. Beta blockers lower blood pressure and lower heart rate. Grouping them together by the last 3 letters made that particular group of meds a lot easier to study.

[kimmyanne02]

Thank you so much! That really helps! I bought some flashcards today called Pharm Phlash, so hopefully those will help. The cards are nice because the front has a few different meds from the same class and the back has the information for those meds as a whole, so you don't just study one med at a time. I also have those flashcards by Mosby with the cartoons. Has anyone used those and found it helpful?