I am truly bad at pharmacology. I have tried sketchy and it is very hit or miss for me. There are just so many drugs in FA that have niche uses that I can never remember. How did you guys all learn pharm?
I'm doing path and pharm this year and I've only gotten through like half of both but I've gotten the hang of em so take this with a grain of salt please. Anyway, what I've done so far is prioritized the mechanism of action and the adverse effects of classes of drugs (for example; calcium channel blockers of the dihydropyridine subclass; block calcium channels so no calcium for contraction hence vessel stays relaxed; blocks muscular contraction elsewhere so you get constipation) over the names of each individual drug. If you do it the other way around, i.e. you try doing each drug individually; memorizing the name, dose, specific adverse effect, you're gonna have a very hard time with pharm. Generalize things; like in the example I quoted above, if there are say 5 (I know there are more lol) dihydropyridine CCBs then they must work with the same mechanism of action, and must have the same general adverse effects. Screw individual drug names, you don't need to all of them. What you must know, like I've said, are the mechanism of action, indications, adverse effects, and main categories. Build your pharm like a pyramind, man. Mechanisms first, then adverse effects, then uses/indications, then the minutia. Because after a year or so it'll be okay to look up the dosing scheme of a drug when you're on the floors but not the mechanism of action or the major adverse effects.
As far as reference books are concerned, and I say this for all books, the bigger the better. Bigger books have more narration, and narration sets you up for those key details that you have to remember. Smaller books have more factoids, less narration, so it's hard to retain it all. Think about it, would you more comfortable knowing that you only need to retain a third of a 3 inch thick book, or knowing that you have to memorize each word of a 1 inch thick book?
Recommendations for pharm;
Books with more narration;
1. Katzung and Trevor's Basic and Clinical Pharmacology
2. Rang and Dale Pharmacology
3. Lippincott's illustrated review; pharmacology
Books with less narration;
1. Katzung Board Review
2. BRS pharmacology
3. Kaplan pharmacology
Godspeed buddy
