How did you guys study for Med chem/Pharmacology

[bankai123]

Hi, folks

I have a hard time studying Med chem/pharmacology in my school of pharmacy. There are about 70 drug name to memorize, but the difficult part is that all the characteristics of the drugs are hard to memorize because many of them are similar but different. These of course include adverse effects, mechanism of action, pharmacokinetics, etc... Any tips on how to study those things effectively? I tried condensing my notes but there are just too much material for me to memorize everything at once. Any advice would be helpful

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[WVUPharm2007]

I made flash cards for med chem. Worked pretty well for me. Identify all of the idiosyncrasies and focus on those. Professors love asking about the subtle differences because they are easy questions to write. (i.e metabolism renal vs hepatic, which is a prodrug)

 

[bankai123]

I came up with my way of studying. Please tell me if this could be possibly useful:

I would memorize just the first letter of the whatever idiosyncrasies. So for example, if the drug would cause nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and headache (of course, there are more, but I'm just bringing up simple ones), then I would simply just memorize NVDH. And if there are more idiosyncrasies, then I would expand the letters. Sometimes, I would rearrange the letters to make it look like a word that I am already familiar with. Do you think this would be helpful?

I know this method may seem dumb, but I might actually work... I don't know

 

[firefighter9015]

When there is a lot of memorization to be done, I pair up w/ a friend and we use a white board. We usually write it out while looking at notes a couple times a piece saying it out loud and then do it from memory. This is good for us, and also stimulates "teaching" it, which supposdely you learn more by teaching something then just reading, hearing and writing.

 

[WVUPharm2007]

I came up with my way of studying. Please tell me if this could be possibly useful:

I would memorize just the first letter of the whatever idiosyncrasies. So for example, if the drug would cause nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and headache (of course, there are more, but I'm just bringing up simple ones), then I would simply just memorize NVDH. And if there are more idiosyncrasies, then I would expand the letters. Sometimes, I would rearrange the letters to make it look like a word that I am already familiar with. Do you think this would be helpful?

I know this method may seem dumb, but I might actually work... I don't know

That works, too. That's how I remember which penicillins do not metabolize renally - Nafcillin and Oxacillin....which makes the simple acronymn of NO...or "no renal excretion"....

It doesn't have to be acronyms, either....it can be practical stuff. I remember how glycocides cause nephrotoxicity with high troughs and ototoxicity with high peaks by thinking about how the ear is higher up (peak) on the body that the kidney (trough).

But, yeah, stuff like that makes it easier to remember crap.

 

[Epic]

Having a photographic memory helps...

But I don't remember how I studied...

 

[WVUPharm2007]

Having a photographic memory helps...

But I don't remember how I studied...

That's because you were alive back when Good Times was on the air. Hard to remember that far back.

 

[pinkyrx]

For Pharmacology several of us would come up with 5 possible test questions for every lecture hour. We'd email the questions to one person who would keep track and distribute the "fake test" the week before the exam. It really helped because you could see what others thought were "test-worthy" parts of the lecture. We'd usually guess lots of the questions correctly, so it helped a lot with the real exam.

Other than that... condense... memorize/study and then condense again until you have it all down pat.

 

[loo]

That's because you were alive back when Good Times was on the air. Hard to remember that far back.

Yeah. Good Times. The Jeffersons. Sanford and Son...

Damn. I'm old.

 

[ageldred]

For Pharmacology several of us would come up with 5 possible test questions for every lecture hour. We'd email the questions to one person who would keep track and distribute the "fake test" the week before the exam. It really helped because you could see what others thought were "test-worthy" parts of the lecture. We'd usually guess lots of the questions correctly, so it helped a lot with the real exam.

Other than that... condense... memorize/study and then condense again until you have it all down pat.

Wow, that's a great idea!! I'll have to use that one next semester.

I always start the semester with the best of intentions....

Any ideas on maintaining motivation during that midsemester slump until the end?

 

[ATPase2]

I study with a couple of friends - we discuss the lectures, and come up with the acronyms to remember things, or may be a story - basically anything to make a memory. Sometimes someone would say something annoying, like cocaine structure looks like a bird - but then in exam I remembered it and picked the right one!
My favorite :UAA, UAG, UGA - stop codons - U Ate Apples, u ate goose, u go away

Some drug names already have acronyms in them: Nameda - NMDA receptor antagonist.

Good luck in your exams - I heard it gets better...

 

[taken2]

Wow, that's a great idea!! I'll have to use that one next semester.

I always start the semester with the best of intentions....

Any ideas on maintaining motivation during that midsemester slump until the end?

Yeah!! me too..... I always start out strong but then around the second and third exam, I loose focus. I don't know how to isolate myself from all the negativities in my class without losing people I study with.
All those crazy stuffs come up around midsemester and I always get caught in them.

 

[KUMoose]

Ultimately I'm lucky, my MedChem is less about knowing the stuctures of 50 drugs and more about knowing the SAR and how to create plausibly useful drugs from crappy ones.

As for Pharmacology, I literally have 350+ cards at this point. Drugs, receptors, mechanisms, classes, you name it, I've got a card for it. I take them everything and look at them. It's gotten bad enough I take them to the market when I shop and to the barber when I get my hair cut.

Interestingly enough, it's almost rivaling having a dog or baby for a date magnet. Who knew?? I'd rather have the dog though.

 

[pinkyrx]

Wow, that's a great idea!! I'll have to use that one next semester.

I always start the semester with the best of intentions....

Any ideas on maintaining motivation during that midsemester slump until the end?

I had the opposite problem. I usually did worse on the first exam and then had to struggle to bring my grade up before the end of the semester.

 

[DrugDealer]

As for Pharmacology, I literally have 350+ cards at this point. Drugs, receptors, mechanisms, classes, you name it, I've got a card for it. I take them everything and look at them. It's gotten bad enough I take them to the market when I shop and to the barber when I get my hair cut..

Well, I haven't taken my cards to the market yet, but they do go with me to the nail salon during each pedicure! And to the gym, so I can study on the treadmill...

 

[MR. C]

for those that like flashcards...

http://www.flashcardexchange.com

this is a flashcard site.. where you can make your own or search for cards someone else has posted. Someone in my class sent it to me a few weeks ago and I like it. Doing a quick search for pharmacology gave 1000+card sets

you have to sign up, but its free. They have a membership that cost ~$20 that does a little more, but I just have the free one.

 

[evilolive]

Our first semester medicinal chemistry was completely about drug assays and the science behind it (separation of enantiomers, drug polarity properties). We haven't learned anything about a single drug since we've started pharmacy school except for coumadin in pharmaceutics and why generic versus brand might have made a difference.