Pharmacology all about stupid memorization?

[Enigma90]

I'm a 3rd year med student and I'm finding it really difficult to memorize pharmacology.I think concept based studies are far better than memorization method,but i'm still confused.
P.S what reference books should i study other than Lippincott Williams & Wilkins...I'm also using first aid for USMLE atm...
suggestions please!!!

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[Winterpegger]

I'm a 3rd year med student and I'm finding it really difficult to memorize pharmacology.I think concept based studies are far better than memorization method,but i'm still confused.
P.S what reference books should i study other than Lippincott Williams & Wilkins...I'm also using first aid for USMLE atm...
suggestions please!!!

in my 2nd year pharm course I had to make flash cards, focusing on mechanisms of action, adverse effects, drugs of choice, and special interactions with other drugs. Keep the flash cards as simple/sparse as possible so that you don't have any cues to give away the answer before you turn the card over. That's what worked for me, anyhow..then week before the exam I re-wrote this same information into a notebook (copying from class notes) and highlighted everything I hadn't memorized. I had a lot of trouble with pharm too. Not sure if this helps you since you're in 3rd year and might need to focus on different stuff than we did for course

 

[Charles_Carmichael]

Having a solid foundation in physiology makes pharm a hell of a lot easier (except for the antibiotics...ugh). I've been finding Kaplan pharm + pharmcards to be a very good combination so far.

 

[Laryngophed]

Having a solid foundation in physiology makes pharm a hell of a lot easier (except for the antibiotics...ugh).

^Formula to success discovered.

 

[Enigma90]

in my 2nd year pharm course I had to make flash cards, focusing on mechanisms of action, adverse effects, drugs of choice, and special interactions with other drugs. Keep the flash cards as simple/sparse as possible so that you don't have any cues to give away the answer before you turn the card over. That's what worked for me, anyhow..then week before the exam I re-wrote this same information into a notebook (copying from class notes) and highlighted everything I hadn't memorized. I had a lot of trouble with pharm too. Not sure if this helps you since you're in 3rd year and might need to focus on different stuff than we did for course

Thanks for all those precious suggestions mate..I'm new to pharmacology cause i just got into 3rd year where i got other subjects like forensic medicine,general pathology and microbiology but i've been focusing more on pharma cause i have heard all that horrible stuff regarding learning pharma since i am bad at memorization i go for learning the basic concepts instead and learning mnemonics are helpful too...just hope things come out well in the end.

 

[Enigma90]

Having a solid foundation in physiology makes pharm a hell of a lot easier (except for the antibiotics...ugh). I've been finding Kaplan pharm + pharmcards to be a very good combination so far.

That's right i've been good at physiology, hence learning mechanisms are not so difficult..

 

[duckie99]

On rotations you will generally see the same drugs over and over again. Most of the side effects are rare and you only really need to know big/common/deadly ones. However the only real way to learn it is both to memorize it but also to get used to seeing them used in practice. Also they will repeat over and over and over and you'll look them up over and over and over so you'll eventually learn the stuff you need to know. It just takes time.