General Approach to Pharmacology (for class and for Step I)

[Siverhideo1985]

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If you had a limited amount of time (too little to know every drug down to every detail) and you had to choose between learning a few drugs very well or know a little about all of them, which would you choose?

Example: Say you have a 100 drugs and a day to learn everything there is to know about them would you choose to learn 50 down to the tiniest details or would you go for just knowing what the 100 drugs do (say, MOA and indications). [specific numbers in this example aren't important but you get the concept I'm getting at...I'm sure all you SDNers could learn 100 drugs in one day, np, right? haha]

Would your approach change from studying for a class exam vs. the Step I?

I always find myself short of time to know every damned last side-effect for every drug and am wondering which is worth more (also in respect to the Step I which seems to ask very detailed questions about specific drugs)

Just wondering what people's approach is...

thanks

 

[engineeredout]

Consider Kaplan Pharm videos. I think they're very well done, and for me personally they're the first time most of the mechanisms/side effects have ever really made sense. Just wish I started using them last year.

 

[Gabby]

You don't have time to learn everything. You need to learn them in groups and then point out distinctive features.

For example, when learning antibiotics, I'd group all the Cell Wall Inhibitors together. Within that group, I'd subdivide based on if they were beta-lactams or glycopeptides, etc. and make myself a chart to learn what category they all fell in so I didn't have to learn the mechanisms of action individually. And within that group, I'd highlight distinctive features of each.

So I'd have a chart that had Vancomycin and Telavancin listed under Glycopeptides (and Glycopeptides would be a sub-category of Cell Wall Inhibitors) and then next to Vanco, I'd write --

Vancomycin: MRSA coverage, "red man's syndrome," renal elim., g+ bacteria and coag negative staph

Done. I'd just have to remember where it was on my chart (under glycopeptides, which is a cell wall inhibitors) to know the MoA on the exam, so long as I knew what all glycopeptides did. I'd miss a question or two here and there on the more specific details, but I found that this method got me most of the questions right.

If you try to learn each individual drug, it's too much. Group them as much as possible and write out the groups to know which goes where, then focus on what makes them different from one another.

 

[gravitywave]

You don't have time to learn everything. You need to learn them in groups and then point out distinctive features.

For example, when learning antibiotics, I'd group all the Cell Wall Inhibitors together. Within that group, I'd subdivide based on if they were beta-lactams or glycopeptides, etc. and make myself a chart to learn what category they all fell in so I didn't have to learn the mechanisms of action individually. And within that group, I'd highlight distinctive features of each.

So I'd have a chart that had Vancomycin and Telavancin listed under Glycopeptides (and Glycopeptides would be a sub-category of Cell Wall Inhibitors) and then next to Vanco, I'd write --

Vancomycin: MRSA coverage, "red man's syndrome," renal elim., g+ bacteria and coag negative staph

Done. I'd just have to remember where it was on my chart (under glycopeptides, which is a cell wall inhibitors) to know the MoA on the exam, so long as I knew what all glycopeptides did. I'd miss a question or two here and there on the more specific details, but I found that this method got me most of the questions right.

If you try to learn each individual drug, it's too much. Group them as much as possible and write out the groups to know which goes where, then focus on what makes them different from one another.

this. all the aminoglycosides work basically the same way. all the statins too, etc etc. after all, how did you learn all the rxns for orgo 2? don't tell me you just memorized them all

"clinical microbiology made ridiculously simple" has some good mnemonics if you're into that.