P1 Textbooks

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I am entering P1 this coming fall and I need to budget for my textbooks. Anyone have any ideas on how much I should allot for my P1 textbooks (fall and spring semester)?

Thanks for the help!

Oh and I am going to the University at Buffalo.

I am entering P1 this coming fall and I need to budget for my textbooks. Anyone have any ideas on how much I should allot for my P1 textbooks (fall and spring semester)?

Thanks for the help!

Oh and I am going to the University at Buffalo.

Originally Posted by Tate

I am entering P1 this coming fall and I need to budget for my textbooks. Anyone have any ideas on how much I should allot for my P1 textbooks (fall and spring semester)?

Thanks for the help!

Oh and I am going to the University at Buffalo.

Depends on the school but I've been told that $500 is a pretty safe bet.

They probably have that somewhere on their website, under tuition or cost of living or something like that.

The most I've ever spent was about $400 for a semester, but those books are for 8 classes. On average, below $100 per semester. The key is to talk with the upper classman. A lot of books are "required," but, in reality, you don't need them. The handouts are more than suitable.

Many of the uppers will sell them to you as well.

I spent about $400 on books for this P1 year. I probably could have gotten away with $0 on books if I wanted to be really stingy or maybe $260 judging from the books I've actually used. I've used Goodman/Gilman, Lehninger's Biochemistry (somewhat), Pharmacy Drug Cards, and Foye's Medicinal Chemistry (somewhat useful for finding the prof's mistakes ) - the others are gathering dust as we speak.

At my school, at a lot of professors talk about "required" textbooks. What they mean is, "this book will go into more detail than I'll present and it might/might not be useful to you". Your school may be different in how they use textbooks.

Amazon.com is a good place for pharmacy books. You can save 40-50% off the list price and delivery is usually quite speedy.

Definitely ask some upperclassmen about what books to buy and which ones to skip! I agree with twester that the Foye's Medicinal Chemistry was helpful. Honestly though, most of the books I bought in pharmacy school were useless with the exception of Lippincott's Pharmacology!

Originally Posted by twester

I spent about $400 on books for this P1 year. I probably could have gotten away with $0 on books if I wanted to be really stingy or maybe $260 judging from the books I've actually used. I've used Goodman/Gilman, Lehninger's Biochemistry (somewhat), Pharmacy Drug Cards, and Foye's Medicinal Chemistry (somewhat useful for finding the prof's mistakes ) - the others are gathering dust as we speak.

At my school, at a lot of professors talk about "required" textbooks. What they mean is, "this book will go into more detail than I'll present and it might/might not be useful to you". Your school may be different in how they use textbooks.

Amazon.com is a good place for pharmacy books. You can save 40-50% off the list price and delivery is usually quite speedy.

Which textbooks did you buy but did not need? I dont like buying textbooks but I dont think I want to start out RX school by not buying the books either. Do you want to sell them?

There were two threads on this subject so I merged them and placed the merged thread in the pharmacy forum. Please do not post the same topic in multiple forums.

Originally Posted by futureRXdealer

Which textbooks did you buy but did not need? I dont like buying textbooks but I dont think I want to start out RX school by not buying the books either. Do you want to sell them?

Don't buy Drug Information - A Guide for Pharmacists. I've never opened it. If you need it for something there's a copy on reserve in the library.

Don't buy Ansel's Pharmaceutical Dosage Forms and Drug Delivery Systems.

Don't buy Medical Terminology Simplified.

No need to buy Goodman and Gilman's. It's available online through the library as an e-book. I like having mine, but I'm not sure many other people in the class bought it. It takes some work to sift through to find information and some people don't like that. I think it's kind of fun myself.

Who knows? I might end up pulling some of those books down someday. I'm going to hang onto them.

Will the professors ever ask for homework assignments from the textbooks, like completing problems from a certain page? Or are the books mainly used to study from?

Originally Posted by bromine

Will the professors ever ask for homework assignments from the textbooks, like completing problems from a certain page? Or are the books mainly used to study from?

They only assigned problems for calculations. My professor said she would check if we did them but never did.

At the Univ. of Colorado, "required" texts are a joke... don't get suckered into buying them. The only books that are really useful are the mini-DiPiro (it's more useful than the 50 lb DiPiro book - especially for CPC - , although the hardback version does come with a CD-ROM book). Also, pick up a Drug Info. Handbook, since they have great, concise drug info and nice conversion tables. A pharmaceutical calculations book may be helpful as well. But beyond that, don't waste money on biochem, economics, or cell biology books or anything like that... that's what the powerpoints are for.

Textbooks? What are those? I just buy the notes except for my Pharm Cal book.

Why waste the money?

Depends where you go to school - the Ansel book is a biggie at UNM because that prof tests out of it word for word (as in memorize it word for word).

I haven't opened Foye's med chem more than 5 times in 2 years.
I barely touched the Pray OTC book.
ditto for the books for our Admin class.