Most Challenging...?

[Electrode]

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What pharmacy course do (or did) you find the most challenging at your pharmacy school/program? Also, what other thing(s) made pharmacy school very challenging for you in general; the bulky memorizations? Time management?

I start the program this fall, and my imaginations won't stop running wild on what to exactly expect.

I'll appreciate any advice on how you (or would have) effectively tackled those challenges.

Many much advanced thank you's🙂

 

[mustang sally]

I am almost done with my classes (!), and the hardest class for me by far and away was infectious disease therapeutics. Just too many bugs, drugs, HIV meds, etc. Some other classes that people in my school struggled with were biochemistry, pathology, and pharmacology.

I think a lot of it comes down to how well prepared you are academically and how hard you are willing to work. But no matter if you are coming off of two years of community college or already have previous degrees, the most important thing is not to fall behind. Have good time management. If a test is coming up for an intensive class, don't leave studying until the night before no matter how much you had to work that week.

 

[rxlea]

I am only a first year but so far Infectious Disease, hands down.

EDIT: what's crazy is that I thought for sure I wouldn't remember this much stuff but when I am working or go to IPPE (and when I did my P4 shadowing) I surprise myself by how much I have actually retained- esp with dosing and interactions. It's pretty cool. But, I am not one of those "pump and dump" type students, either...

 

[Electrode]

Infectious disease, note taken. Thanks to you both. Anymore of that will still be appreciated.

 

[themorphinerule]

Interesting question... Cardio was my first C class.. and was a huge challenge for me. What's odd is that I'm strongest in cardio, especially treatment, pharmacology, dynamics.. even more so than some of my friends that aced it while I was struggling. That said-- I'm no good when it required bulk memorization without understanding. I had to "understand" cardio, and the tons of stuff they dump on you is just not congruent with trying to synthesize the information. So cardio might be tough in that the material is difficult and requires rote memorization. We also had a clinical laboratory and monitoring course "Clin Lab" that served as the intro to all the pharmacotherapeutic courses, which, lets see: we had ID, Renal, Cardio, Respiratory, Mens and Women's Health, Heme/Onc, etc etc.. so fitting all the lab data, collection and understanding what eh labs for each of those disciplines in one course was a ton of memorization: you guessed it-- second "C".

 

[IndustryPharmD]

Staying awake. In any of them. 😀

Pharmacy school was not difficult. Just boring, because so much of it is rote memorization and there are hardly any classes where you actually have to think.

 

[mustang sally]

I will second cardio being hard. It was one of my lowest grades in school so far (haven't seen my ID grade yet). It was another class at my school that was notorious for holding people back a year.

 

[rxlea]

Staying awake. In any of them. 😀

Pharmacy school was not difficult. Just boring, because so much of it is rote memorization and there are hardly any classes where you actually have to think.

I think it may depend on the school/curriculum/faculty. Some of our classes are rote memorization (immunology or biochem, for example) but other classes really challenge you to think. ID isn't all "this drug does that and has this side effect". They ask when you would choose what drug and when, depending on the patient's dx and current condition. In patient assessment we have to "diagnose" patients and our curriculum for that class mirrors what med students learn (we use the same materials, at least that is what my prof told me). They give a patient case with sx and we have to figure out all the possibilities and state why and then state what examinations/tests we would do and why, and what it would r/o, etc. etc. I feel like these are the classes I am in pharmacy school for and I enjoy going to them. Just the other day we had an entire lecture on ethics in pharmacogenetics and it was a really, really good discussion invoking thoughtful debate.

 

[tungsten87]

I think it may depend on the school/curriculum/faculty. Some of our classes are rote memorization (immunology or biochem, for example) but other classes really challenge you to think. ID isn't all "this drug does that and has this side effect". They ask when you would choose what drug and when, depending on the patient's dx and current condition. In patient assessment we have to "diagnose" patients and our curriculum for that class mirrors what med students learn (we use the same materials, at least that is what my prof told me). They give a patient case with sx and we have to figure out all the possibilities and state why and then state what examinations/tests we would do and why, and what it would r/o, etc. etc. I feel like these are the classes I am in pharmacy school for and I enjoy going to them. Just the other day we had an entire lecture on ethics in pharmacogenetics and it was a really, really good discussion invoking thoughtful debate.

My school is the same way... in fact I'd say there is very little "rote memorization" in pharmacy school, especially if one wants to be a complete, competent clinician. It's all about applying the knowledge learned in class in different environments/situations.

 

[IndustryPharmD]

My school is the same way... in fact I'd say there is very little "rote memorization" in pharmacy school, especially if one wants to be a complete, competent clinician. It's all about applying the knowledge learned in class in different environments/situations.

In order to apply something, you still have to memorize it. Try going on rounds and answering every question with "let me look it up real quick". 😀

Compare it with things like chemistry, physics or especially mathematics where there is very limited number of principles to remember and the rest can be derived or figured out.

And applying principles of pharmacotherapy is not nearly analytical enough to be challenging or interesting to me. That's why it is not what I do. It is far more of a box-checking process than uncertainty-weighing process, that's the best I can describe it.

If you enjoy pharmacy school - good for you, you are in right place. But call it challenging? I wouldn't. 🙂

 

[Electrode]

Staying awake. In any of them. 😀

Pharmacy school was not difficult. Just boring, because so much of it is rote memorization and there are hardly any classes where you actually have to think.

Are you vouching for old school or modern day infectious disease learning process?

 

[owlegrad]

Pharmacology (all), ID section of pharmacotherapy. Cardio in therapy was no walk in the park either.

 

[IndustryPharmD]

Are you vouching for old school or modern day infectious disease learning process?

I ain't that old, m'dear.

Although I must say the ability of people to think and analyze issues independently either have deteriorated over time, or I have been unlucky with the pharmacy students i have worked with in the last couple years. So maybe for the current generation of students the things that require more than multiple guess are indeed challenging and I just fail to appreciate the fact. Now that would be sad.

PS If you wish, post a type of a problem/case/whatever you would consider "challenging" and I will tell you whether I agree or disagree. I will also say WHY I agree or disagree, and would love to hear why you consider it challenging as well. 🙂

 

[Sparda29]

Psychiatry and Oncology were the hardest part of therapeutics for me.

 

[Old Timer]

In order to apply something, you still have to memorize it. Try going on rounds and answering every question with "let me look it up real quick". 😀

Compare it with things like chemistry, physics or especially mathematics where there is very limited number of principles to remember and the rest can be derived or figured out.

And applying principles of pharmacotherapy is not nearly analytical enough to be challenging or interesting to me. That's why it is not what I do. It is far more of a box-checking process than uncertainty-weighing process, that's the best I can describe it.

If you enjoy pharmacy school - good for you, you are in right place. But call it challenging? I wouldn't. 🙂

I couldn't disagree more. That's where the old phrase secundem artem comes from. The healing arts are called arts because there is as much art as there is science. If it wasn't, you wouldn;t need doctors or pharmacists. You go to a computer and punch in your symptoms and out would pop the pills. While much of school is rote and much of daily practice is also rote (this goes for doctors as well) there are times when you need to go outside of the box to solve something for a patient.

 

[IndustryPharmD]

I couldn't disagree more. That's where the old phrase secundem artem comes from. The healing arts are called arts because there is as much art as there is science. If it wasn't, you wouldn;t need doctors or pharmacists. You go to a computer and punch in your symptoms and out would pop the pills. While much of school is rote and much of daily practice is also rote (this goes for doctors as well) there are times when you need to go outside of the box to solve something for a patient.

These were two different arguments I was making, sorry they sound like they are part of the same. My bad.

To clarify, my points are:

1) Pharmacy school does require a lot of memorization (compare with math, physics, etc.) because there is a large volume of information one needs to hold in one's operating memory in order to apply it
2) Pharmacy school does not require a lot of higher-level analysis (compared to jurisprudence, business decision-making, history) because there are a lot of guidelines, relatively few unknown variables, and vast majority of the time there is an answer which is better than others or any answer of several options will work just as fine.

The actual practice of pharmacy is somewhat better than pharmacy school on both of these points, but still not something I would call challenging for those reasons (there are other reasons, though, for me to consider it challenging indeed, but those have nothing to do with school).

Having studied a lot of different things from upper-level physics courses to law and a few things in between, I have a broader base for comparison than majority of pharmacy students. 🙂

 

[Old Timer]

Pharmacy school does require a lot of memorization (compare with math, physics, etc.) because there is a large volume of information one needs to hold in one's operating memory in order to apply it

Compared to math or physics, yes compared to biology or history no. So what, your point is meaningless.

Pharmacy school does not require a lot of higher-level analysis (compared to jurisprudence, business decision-making, history) because there are a lot of guidelines, relatively few unknown variables, and vast majority of the time there is an answer which is better than others or any answer of several options will work just as fine.

You would have to define higher level analysis. But there is a great deal of variables when dealing with patients as opposed to machines. I have many friends who are attorneys and your answer would apply to them as well. As the judge would say, motion denied, facts not in evidence.

 

[PharMed2016]

What pharmacy course do (or did) you find the most challenging at your pharmacy school/program? Also, what other thing(s) made pharmacy school very challenging for you in general; the bulky memorizations? Time management?

I start the program this fall, and my imaginations won't stop running wild on what to exactly expect.

I'll appreciate any advice on how you (or would have) effectively tackled those challenges.

Many much advanced thank you's🙂

I'll be finishing up the didactic part of pharmacy school soon, so from my experiences I can say that the therapeutics course was the difficult for me. It's probably due to the shear volume of information that they give us rather than anything else. You just have to be able to memorize all the nick-picky things, lol.

Within the therapeutics course, I would have to say anti-arrhythmics was the one that gave me the most difficulty. The Dipiro book was a little confusing as was the lecture which was based off of it. =/

Right now we are finishing up ID and honestly its not that bad. It's a lot of memorization but I think if you have a firm grasp of the antibiotics and their specific bugs that they treat - you'll be fine.

As for heme-oncology, we have that coming up next. I hear its rather difficult and on-par with Infectious diseases.

 

[IndustryPharmD]

Compared to math or physics, yes compared to biology or history no. So what, your point is meaningless.

Are you disagreeing that pharmacy requires a lot of rote memorization? Or are you disagreeing because you find rote memorization challenging?

You would have to define higher level analysis. But there is a great deal of variables when dealing with patients as opposed to machines. I have many friends who are attorneys and your answer would apply to them as well. As the judge would say, motion denied, facts not in evidence.

Ok, give me an example with a great deal of variables that require more than one step to resolve. Produce the facts. 😀

 

[Old Timer]

Are you disagreeing that pharmacy requires a lot of rote memorization? Or are you disagreeing because you find rote memorization challenging?

I don't find memorization challenging, or at least I didn't 30 years ago when I was in school. I just feel you make bad arguments. By selecting math and physics and ignoring biology and history, you make a false argument.

Ok, give me an example with a great deal of variables that require more than one step to resolve. Produce the facts. 😀

I'll give you one, but you need to supply some facts to backup what you say about the law requiring a more analytical approach. Let's say you are seeing a patient with an infection. There are many variables, what is the susceptibility, can you reach the MIC where the infection is, what is renal function, what is the hepatic function, what other concomitant medications will affect the therapy choice, what other co-morbid conditions will affect the therapy choice. Just because most of the time it's a simple UTI with e-coli susceptible to Bactrim does not mean every case is like that.

 

[museabuse]

Pharmacy school was a walk in the park compared to engineering. I had to take a theoretical computing class. I got 20 out of 100 on a test. With a curve that was a B. The highest grade was a 35. It was an open book test. With pharmacy school most of the questions were black and white. You read a question, the answer is either in your memorization bank or not. Or if there is a problem to solve there is a guideline to follow. Engineering you actually have to understand concepts and apply them. It's not just numbers and plugging into an equation.