On the verge of failing. Any tips or ideas?

[AlterEgo8221]

I'm a second year at a state school. I'm at serious risk of not passing pharmacology. We've had half of our tests so far, and my average is in the high 50s. I didn't study nearly enough for the first test – I kind of blew it off and was totally caught off guard by the level of detail that we needed to know. So for the next test, I started studying way earlier. I read 2 different books without taking notes or anything, just to get a general idea of all of the concepts. Then I went through and made handwritten notes from all of our powerpoint lectures. Sadly, this took me up until the test to complete. Even though I got about 8 hours of sleep combined from the 3 nights before the test, I was never even able to read back through those notes all the way. I know that I missed a lot of straightforward questions that I had written in my notes.

I've met with the professor, and he's less than optimistic. I'd have to get just over a 90% average on the remaining tests to get a C, and an average in the low 80s to get a conditional pass (70-75% overall for the class). He came up with the idea that I could spend spring break studying my pants off, and he will make me a new test covering the material from the first 2. It'll be added into my average just like as if it were another test. This is obviously a huge opportunity that I'm pretty sure the administration of my school would not be happy with, if they knew about it. However, I'm completely terrified that I could somehow do worse on this new test and bring my average down even further. It would be covering autonomics, adrenergics, sympathomimetics, renal pharm, and all of the cardiac stuff (arrhythmias, lipids, HTN, etc). It seems like an impossible goal to know all of this, when I obviously didn't learn it very well the first time.

The daunting task of this test is made even worse by the psychological issues I'm having with potentially failing and having to repeat the year. I'll take any study tips, support, whatever that I can get. Desperation doesn't adequately describe where I am right now. Thanks, guys.

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[Daiphon]

At the risk of qualifying for understatement of the year, that sucks.

Then again, you're being handed a golden opportunity: dedicated time to learn this stuff...

You've already started the process; reading --> notes, but ran out of time. You also have the benefit of seeing your professor's style in terms of question construction & content.

My advice:
-double down & take the gamble. Sounds like you don't have much to lose.

-I liked PharmCards + first aid + Kaplan step 1 notes (great autonomics)

-try to rearrange the organ systems. Many autonomics are antihypertensives, for example, so if you group them clinically it may help.

Good luck!!!
-d

ps - don't freak out. You're not the first to have trouble with pharm. d=)

Sent from my DROID BIONIC using Tapatalk

 

[SloanePeterson]

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[SloanePeterson]

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[myhandsarecold]

stop reading books. print the lectures, watch the lecture videos and right down notes in them. read the print out w/ notes 3-4 x. see your mental health provider of choice, don't start anything in the meantime, just do talk therapy or CBT or whatever. probably should meet with the learning disability person on campus to get some learning strategies.

 

[gman33]

I'm a big fan of mnemonics. I found them very useful for pharm stuff.
Generally what I would do is create some type of link between the data I was trying to remember and the phonetic pronunciation of the drug name.

I found that the real key was creating strong mental images that I wouldn't forget no matter what. I made them personal and as such they don't really work for other people.

There are plenty of good books on memorization techniques if you want to explore this topic.

I consolidated the notes from all the pharm lectures into one big spreadsheet.
Stuff that I guessed wasn't that important, I would leave out.
It's kind of impossible to memorize 100 side effects for every drug.

Another thing I found really helpful was to stop going to pharm lectures.
It's really just a bunch of random facts.
The ramblings of some pharm prof never really helped me.

I was an average student, but I pretty much never missed a pharm question on our exams. They felt like "freebies" to me.

 

[cobalt314]

I thought Pharmacology Recall (http://www.amazon.com/Pharmacology-Recall-Wolters-Kluwer/dp/0781787300/ref=dp_ob_title_bk) was a useful book. It's in a Q&A format & highlights a lot of significant points. Wouldn't use it by itself (not comprehensive enough), but it's much more approachable & easy to read than very detailed resources (which can sometimes seem overwhelming).

 

[herkyMD]

sounds to me like you weren't using your study time very effectively. reading through 2 separate books for pharm seems like a huge waste of time to me seeing as how most pharm questions for exams are minutiae that the concepts really aren't going to help you with much anyway. i second flash cards. you need to see this stuff multiple times to just get the basics. also, look for trends. a lot of classes of drugs have the same side effects except for maybe 1 or 2 big ones for individual drugs. i was in a similar situation (although not as dire), where i just passed most of the exams and even failed one by a few points so i had to pass the cumulative final to pass the class. it's a lot of pressure but eventually you'll get to the point where you realize you studied as hard as you could and whatever happens, happens. take your profs gift and run with it. use spring break to your advantage and just get through this. good luck.

 

[Jenny2009]

pharmacology can be pretty difficult

 

[BRIAN1986]

Agree with above

 

[AlterEgo8221]

At the risk of qualifying for understatement of the year, that sucks.

ps - don't freak out. You're not the first to have trouble with pharm. d=)

No joke, and thank you.

sounds to me like you weren't using your study time very effectively. reading through 2 separate books for pharm seems like a huge waste of time to me seeing as how most pharm questions for exams are minutiae that the concepts really aren't going to help you with much anyway. i second flash cards.

It's things like this that make me glad that message boards exist, while at the same time make me feel kind of dumb. You're right, the books were a total waste of time, and I didn't even realize that until you said it. It's frustrating that I haven't figured these things out for myself yet, so thanks for doing it for me!

Thank you to everyone. It's nice to have a sympathetic ear, considering I'm too embarassed to tell anyone in real life other than my mom!

 

[Miss Alyssa]

you can also try PreTest Pharm for questions to test and reinforce your learning.

 

[Total180]

http://www.amazon.com/Illustrated-Pharmacology-Memory-Cards-PharMnemonics/dp/1595411011

If you are a visual learner at all, these flashcards are AMAZING. They have dumb little pictures on them to help you remember plus all the information about them (and on the back there are usually helpful things like differentiating between similar drugs, etc.). Really, I think it is the pictures on them that are the most amazing thing though. I went through them once, and remembered a lot of the info just because of the stupid picture/helpful hints on the cards. They are also grouped according to class, so it's quick and easy to pick out the ones you need.

 

[CAMi]

I'm a second year at a state school. I'm at serious risk of not passing pharmacology. We've had half of our tests so far, and my average is in the high 50s. I didn't study nearly enough for the first test – I kind of blew it off and was totally caught off guard by the level of detail that we needed to know. So for the next test, I started studying way earlier. I read 2 different books without taking notes or anything, just to get a general idea of all of the concepts. Then I went through and made handwritten notes from all of our powerpoint lectures. Sadly, this took me up until the test to complete. Even though I got about 8 hours of sleep combined from the 3 nights before the test, I was never even able to read back through those notes all the way. I know that I missed a lot of straightforward questions that I had written in my notes.

I've met with the professor, and he's less than optimistic. I'd have to get just over a 90% average on the remaining tests to get a C, and an average in the low 80s to get a conditional pass (70-75% overall for the class). He came up with the idea that I could spend spring break studying my pants off, and he will make me a new test covering the material from the first 2. It'll be added into my average just like as if it were another test. This is obviously a huge opportunity that I'm pretty sure the administration of my school would not be happy with, if they knew about it. However, I'm completely terrified that I could somehow do worse on this new test and bring my average down even further. It would be covering autonomics, adrenergics, sympathomimetics, renal pharm, and all of the cardiac stuff (arrhythmias, lipids, HTN, etc). It seems like an impossible goal to know all of this, when I obviously didn't learn it very well the first time.

The daunting task of this test is made even worse by the psychological issues I'm having with potentially failing and having to repeat the year. I'll take any study tips, support, whatever that I can get. Desperation doesn't adequately describe where I am right now. Thanks, guys.

any updates? did you end up passing?

 

[AlterEgo8221]

Funny you happened to ask today, since this morning was our final exam. Spoiler alert: I ended up with the conditional pass overall.

I did end up taking the extra test, and got a high A on it (the professor was clearly trying to throw me a bone with it). I got an 82% on the next regular class exam, and things were definitely looking promising. Then, I thought I put in a solid effort at studying for this final test, but ended up with a 75%. So, my total average in the class is a 73.5%.

I'm pretty bummed to be taking the conditional pass, but obviously it's much better than the alternative. Without that extra test, and with the other grades I got, I would have failed the course. It's crazy to think that I'm that struggling kid in the class - that was definitely not on my radar when I thought about what med school would be like. Luckily, at my school, getting one conditional pass gets you a warning, but no other real problems (although I'm not sure if it'll show up on my transcript, or if it'll just be a C). I just have to be on the straight and narrow with my other classes and for the clinical years.

For any future strugglers out there -- for the love of all that's holy, take the advice of the people above and stick with repetition in pharm. Repeat, repeat, and repeat some more. Still seems so ridiculous that I couldn't put that together myself...

Thanks for all of the support, everyone.

 

[realmeaning]

Tears, clap.

I love this stuff! Congrats.