Pharmacology

[username456789]

Ok, so it's clear to me that

A) my school's "pharm program" is pretty deficient (no actual pharm class, poor "quality control" over what is taught/emphasized across all drugs).

B) as a result, pharmacy is my weakest % on UW (64%, whereas my overall score is 77%, granted with only 15% complete).

With all other subjects (path, phys, anatomy, etc) I generally at least have a good idea of what they're asking and what the answer is. With pharmacology, I have enough trouble remembering what the drug does (is it a _____ agonist or antagonist? is it used for diarrhea or for colon cancer?). Remembering the side effects (with the exception of really major/emphasized ones like ACE cough/angioedema, Metformin and lactic acidosis, etc) is my biggest issue, it seems. This spans most drug classes I would say.

Anyone have any solid advice for how to really nail this stuff down? I guess rote memorization is probably the way to go at this point? I will say I haven't really done much pharm studying so far (I have 4 weeks to go), but I'm still doing significantly better in OTHER subjects/topics that I have yet to study, and when I read UW explanations of pharm questions, a lot of the time it's "oh....I never knew that" or "oh.....yeah I guess maybe we were told that but it sure wasn't ever emphasized" rather than "oh right, of course now I remember, I'll definitely remember that next time."

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[turkeyjerky]

i'd recommend buying some flashcards using those. go through pharm systemically with your studying, but also reserve like an hour every other day or so to go the flash cards. focus on memorizing the class and MoA first, then once you've got that down, learn the side effects and distinguishing characteristics.

In general though, you're not in bad shape--especially w/ 4 wks to go. A lot of the Uworld pharm questions are pretty tough

 

[username456789]

i'd recommend buying some flashcards using those. go through pharm systemically with your studying, but also reserve like an hour every other day or so to go the flash cards. focus on memorizing the class and MoA first, then once you've got that down, learn the side effects and distinguishing characteristics.

In general though, you're not in bad shape--especially w/ 4 wks to go. A lot of the Uworld pharm questions are pretty tough

Thanks for the reply, man. I should've also said that I own the Lange flashcards (and the Katzung/Trevor pharm review, which might be a decent reference at the very least, if I have time).

My plan has been to do the relevant pharm at the end of each system (I'm actually starting to go through the pharmacokinetics/dynamics part of FA today, then start pathology/systems in the next day or two), and then try to do Pharm Cards little by little at night (also alternating with microcards, although I've been bad about keeping up with doing that).

Good advice, though, need to make sure I know what a drug is even supposed to do before I know what bad things it does. It's just discouraging when I have no clue what the answer is, then read the answer description and 83% of users got it right. That's a sure sign to me that I never really learned whatever that drug fact was that was being tested, whereas most people did.

My biggest worry is that I'll get to the real thing and I'll have pharm overrepresented or something. Having such a big "weakness" (one of the 3 P's) obviously doesn't sit well with me.

 

[tachyon34]

i felt reading katzung in entirety would take too much time. I just read it for the pharmacodynamics/kinetics section and then certain select subjects that FA did not really explain the mechanism for the drug (e.g. Mannitol)

otherwise i feel that BRS pharm cards are great. They are sparse in info but they tell you the essential 1-2 facts you need to know about the drug

 

[HTxFrog]

I did really well on the pharm shelf (109/100 is what my school gave me and they said they gave us 10 pts. on top of our shelf score so I guess that means I got a 99 from NBME). Anyways all I did was read first aid pharm stuff once as fast as I could w/o any memorizing really and then did about 250 USMLERx pharm questions and read all the answers. They tend to ask certain questions about certain drugs and if you know the MOA and the distinguishing side effects you're good to go. I was overwhelmed by all the random seeming side effects even in first aid but you really just need to know the couple things they want you to know about each drug and the best way to do that is by doing questions. You really only need to know what is in first aid, but I guess its easier to understand First Aid having taking a class on the subject so you may need a book for understanding. Lippincotts is ok but wayyyy too detailed, in fact anything more than understanding what it says in FA is too much. All I can say is DO NOT get bogged down by the details and minutiae.

PS I can't believe y'all don't have pharm class. That would have been awesome during the year, but sucks for boards haha

 

[HTxFrog]

Oh yeah and know Serotonin Syndrome, Neuroleptic Malignant syndrome, MAOi wine/food rxn, and TCA overdose. Those come up alllll the time and are all kinda similar seeming to me

 

[username456789]

Thanks for the input my amphibian friend.

I still have Kaplan Qbank through the next month, and I might just do some Pharm questions from there each night (I tend to save UW for random blocks and not cherry picking, but I might do some UW Pharm blocks too, who knows).

Just did a quick 20 question block on Kaplan and it went pretty well (80%), but the ones I was getting right were like "ASA is avoided in preggos because its MOA is ________." It seems like a lot of the pharm I get is either "if you ever paid attention to anything in class you'll get this right" or "good luck, buddy, hope you memorized the 5th most likely side effect in the 5th most common drug in this class."