Pharmacology Drug Names

[DR DRE]

I’m a MS1 and we just started learning drug names in pharmacology. These names just seem so random, and are so hard to memorize. With anatomy and biochemistry, the names of structures/enzymes actually make sense, but pharmacology is completely another story. Does anyone know of any good books/websites/methods to help memorize these totally random drug names? Thanks.

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[Rendar5]

Yeah, the suck it up and just do it method. The last several letters of drug names will tell u what drugs are in the same family. other than that, just memorize

 

[ShyRem]

dre, when I was in paramedic school the best way to memorize drug names was to record the information (drug, class, indications, etc) onto a cassette tape and play them in the car whenever I drove anywhere. I figured you gotta be in the car anyway, might as well memorize something. Flashcards work well, too. Try making a screensaver out of them.

 

[tigress]

Out of curiosity, which med schools learn pharm in first year? I thought it was commonly a second year course.

just wondering 🙂

good luck OP 👍

 

[DR DRE]

Out of curiosity, which med schools learn pharm in first year? I thought it was commonly a second year course.

just wondering 🙂

good luck OP 👍

I'm over at the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine...yea I thought pharm was a second year course too, but UCLA has a new PBL curriculum that integrates pharm throughout MS1 and MS2...

 

[subtle1epiphany]

MSU med students, both COM and CHM, have pharm the summer between MS1 and MS2. It's technically a MS1 course. Of course, CHM then probably has more integrated into their systems-based PBL, while COM likely pulls it into the systems lectures. Would make sense, right?
It feels like we're the only school that has class year round...

 

[orientedtoself]

Lippincott's Pharmcards are great. I used them to study for Step I, but it would have been great to have them throughout Pharmacology. Initially the cards come alphabetized, but you can sort them into different classes of drugs. Each card has the drug's generic and trade names, type of drug, mechanism of action, clinical uses, metabolism, and common and unique side effects.

 

[2112_rush]

PharmCards are really good...but they aren't detailed enough for our course exams...some people in my class swear by the pharmacology coloring book.

 

[Rendar5]

Einstein has pharm first year, but pharm by systems (like CV pharm or respiratory pharm or renal pharm) is learned within those specific courses.

 

[Mike59]

I’m a MS1 and we just started learning drug names in pharmacology. These names just seem so random, and are so hard to memorize. With anatomy and biochemistry, the names of structures/enzymes actually make sense, but pharmacology is completely another story. Does anyone know of any good books/websites/methods to help memorize these totally random drug names? Thanks.

I don't get why people have so much trouble with pharm? Just learn the classes, then be sure to pronounce the drug names out loud SLOWLY until they sound right. With repetition it's cake....

90% of drugs share the same ending or components as other drugs in the same class (the "___tidine", "___olol", "____prazole"), don't make it harder than it is.

The book Pharmacology recall is a godsend btw.

 

[quideam]

Lippincott's pharm is great to learn the material, and then Pharm recall is great for quizzing yourself. As for memorizing names, try mnemonics or making up little "stories" for yourself to have the information make sense. Good luck - pharm is a pain in the butt.

Oh, also making charts of common drugs helps a lot. Just remember, pharm is really time consuming, no way around it.

 

[closertofine]

Lippincott's pharm is great to learn the material, and then Pharm recall is great for quizzing yourself. As for memorizing names, try mnemonics or making up little "stories" for yourself to have the information make sense. Good luck - pharm is a pain in the butt.

Oh, also making charts of common drugs helps a lot. Just remember, pharm is really time consuming, no way around it.

yeah, I was big on the mnemonics for pharm...some were a little bit of a stretch, but I don't think they would have stuck otherwise.

 

[tiredmom]

Our professor would tell stories about the drugs... it really seemed to help a lot! Learn the basics of the categories (think pattern recognition like in histology), then do a story or something to help you tell the difference between the individual drugs. Making flashcards helped too. Good luck, it gets easier with time.

 

[neonam11]

Hahaha, I think the hardest to memorize are all the biologics--adalimumab, oxalimumab, alteplase, blah.

 

[Megalofyia]

Where is Samoa to answer questions like this?? 🙁

Anyways, I tried to think of the drugs and what they treated and then what side effects would be seen in that person.. I guess along the line of the story telling. Microbiology Made Ridiculously Simple was pretty decent for an antibiotics foundation to add more info to. There is a principle of pharmacology book that my classmates swear by. I use the Lang book simply because I already own it and I'm too cheap to buy more books.

I"m sure you already know of the idea of studying the prototypical drug in each class and then when you add a new drug from that class you just see how the new drug is different.

Most drugs that end in -olol are beta blockers.

 

[supereagles]

My biggest problem is the right pronounciation of these drugs. any suggestions on a website/source that can help out with this?

 

[deleted6669]

"pharmacology made ridiculousy simple"
helps quite a bit. all info arranged into easy to understand tables

 

[Paws]

I just bought the Lippincott review book for pharm and that helps me to better understand the stuff behind the memorizing. I might look for their flashcards because I just really struggle with the meaningless lists of words and data that don't seem to make sense. 🙁

 

[DR DRE]

I just bought the Lippincott review book for pharm and that helps me to better understand the stuff behind the memorizing. I might look for their flashcards because I just really struggle with the meaningless lists of words and data that don't seem to make sense. 🙁

I'm in the same boat as you, don't worry, we'll get through this... 👍