I'm failing PHARM, what should I do?

[medstudent87]

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So, we've had 2 big exams in our pharmacology course so far and I got a 67 on the first one and an even better (sarcasm) 58 on the second. I just don't know how to go about memorizing all these drugs and their minutiae. I have charts that organize all the drugs, but I find that I'm only able to recall a few facts for each one if I'm given the drug name. Honestly, for both exams, I spent too much time studying for other courses (micro, path) and then was left without enough time for pharm...so its my own fault I'm doing badly...but its not like I'm acing those other courses either. 🙁

My question is, should I email the course director and let him know that I'm aware of my terrible course grade and that I'm working to fix it, or just keep it to myself?

I'm so bad at memorizing things...it makes me wonder why I'm even in med school. I always enjoyed using logic and thought to work out problems, especially mathematical ones, and there really isn't any of that here. Too late to drop out though...i'm already 130k in the hole

 

[Rollo]

Definitely get in touch with your course director. Maybe he can help you out more than we might be able to.

Are you doing lot of practice questions?

One strategy I've been using is cramming (i.e. memorizing) drugs and their MOA/side effects day before the exam. I should mention that we're in systems-based so we generally have systems-specific pharm to worry about each exam which can be advantageous.

Also, whenever we learn a major pathology, I try to figure out what kind of drugs can you use to treat it. Then I go look it up to confirm my guess. I study the MOA and try to link the pathology with the MOA and the big picture becomes very clear. This in turn allows me to remember the drug and its MOA rather easily. And the cram session before the exam solidifies the drugs.

 

[Julian2103]

Dont just memorise the names of drugs blindly. Try to mentally associate them with their actions. Or better still draw a schematic diagram of their action of the receptors

 

[njbmd]

If your school has peer tutoring sessions, go to them. Sometimes getting the information (or an approach to learning the information) from another student is helpful. Pharm is about organizing the material so that you can learn it (as stated above) rather than just blind memorization or memorization without direction.

Work hard to do your best on your next test. Stop worrying about the grades that are done but find a different approach that will make you have some success. If you fail and have to remediate, you still have to have an approach for learning the material that works. You might also spend some time with your instructor who can help you with an approach. Go to office hours even when you think you have the material mastered. Sometimes you can get some extra knowledge or understanding by just discussing the material with the professor. Good luck!

 

[abmd]

Definitely get in touch with your course director. Maybe he can help you out more than we might be able to.

Are you doing lot of practice questions?

One strategy I've been using is cramming (i.e. memorizing) drugs and their MOA/side effects day before the exam. I should mention that we're in systems-based so we generally have systems-specific pharm to worry about each exam which can be advantageous.

Also, whenever we learn a major pathology, I try to figure out what kind of drugs can you use to treat it. Then I go look it up to confirm my guess. I study the MOA and try to link the pathology with the MOA and the big picture becomes very clear. This in turn allows me to remember the drug and its MOA rather easily. And the cram session before the exam solidifies the drugs.

where can you get practice questions?

 

[Rollo]

where can you get practice questions?

I use my schools back exams and usmlerx qbank.

I hear Katzung's board review pharm book has lot of questions too. Sometimes our profs will use questions out of the book during lectures.

 

[fahimaz7]

I learn drug classes, then the names, then the uses. It's like a series of layers, that get more specific with each pass.

 

[hurdlepup]

one hint is to come up with parts of the actual name of the drug that seem to have something to do with the side effects:

like, doxorubicin... has ruby in it, sort of...

rubies are red, hearts are red, doxoribucin is cardiotoxic!!

i know its a stretch, but contrary to what certain..ahem.. attendings and professors say, you actually have to just brute memorize most of this stuff, after you put it into a framework of some sort, and stupid mnemonics help--that's why Micro Made Ridiculously Simple works. Without the clinical experience and exposure, it is unfortunately, mostly memorization because you have no real life context for most of it.

 

[Farcus]

The way I go about taking pharmacology is not so much memorizing verbatim on the slide. The way I think of is the pathophysiology of the disease and basically most drugs just work on some physiological process to revert or cancel it. I guess it depends on how the information is introduce to you. If they're only giving you the drug and the info without much background patho then I guess you're SOL based on my method.

Oh drawing pictures helps. Like we're doing migranes right now and i drew a picture of the basic patho around the cerebral cortex and the neurons involved then I put in the drugs that are used and a small footnote on why its used. Obviously U can't do this for ever disease and would be SOL if you're not at least partly visual learner.

If you made me memorize straight up random crap like microbiology -___-' yeh i'll do horrible.

 

[Jolie South]

I agree with speaking with the course director. Aside from that, make diagrams where drugs act and think about them that way. Pharm unfortunately, is brute memorization. I used flashcards and tons of repetition.

 

[AC1997]

Try this out; everything is organized by class and in charts:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=260679685941&ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT

 

[hurdlepup]

where can you get practice questions?

I like using this book.

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Biotest-Study-AIDS-Pharmacology/Mark-A-Simmons/e/9781893720114