Tips for studying pharm?

[ej37]

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Hey all,

Am beginning pharm course now. Was told by upperclassmen to start making flashcards/a drug list for every drug studied in class... then save the relevant ones for board review!

I was just wondering, for those of you that have done this, what informaiton have you included?

And also, does usmle test brand names and generic names?

 

[gman33]

You only need to know the generic names.
Sometimes the brand name is helpful, if you already know the drug by that name, ex: prozac.

You want to know the: name, class, mechanism, use and side effects.
Also know if it does anything to P450 or has anything else special about it.

I kept all this in a spreadsheet.
I haven't used it as much as I probably should have for board studying, but it helped me a ton throughout the year.

I also made mnemonics and kept that in the spreadsheet as well.

 

[Domenech]

IF you have time, I would suggest studying Katzung and Trevor's Board Review Pharmacology. This is an excellent book that can serve as a primary pharmacology textbook.

If you don't have time, you can simply go through Kaplan's pharmacology textbook.

One strategy that would help in your study is making a little notebook and writing all drugs and side effects you find difficult to memorize. Periodic review would help you learn them easily. Of course flashcards serve the same purpose.

 

[axeon123]

You only need to know the generic names.
Sometimes the brand name is helpful, if you already know the drug by that name, ex: prozac.

You want to know the: name, class, mechanism, use and side effects.
Also know if it does anything to P450 or has anything else special about it.

I kept all this in a spreadsheet.
I haven't used it as much as I probably should have for board studying, but it helped me a ton throughout the year.

I also made mnemonics and kept that in the spreadsheet as well.

Would you mind sharing? I'm having trouble remembering names of all the drugs, which is not good. I know how they work and some side effects, but not the name. 🙂

 

[username456789]

I've come to the conclusion that my school sucks at teaching Pharm. We don't have a specific Pharm class, so the drugs are either given to us in a separate lecture around the time we're studying the relevant organ system (which isn't a bad method), or (more often) the random lecturer who's giving a talk on a disease will toss in the relevant drugs at the end.

 

[axeon123]

I've come to the conclusion that my school sucks at teaching Pharm. We don't have a specific Pharm class, so the drugs are either given to us in a separate lecture around the time we're studying the relevant organ system (which isn't a bad method), or (more often) the random lecturer who's giving a talk on a disease will toss in the relevant drugs at the end.

ahaha same here. I don't know how well an integrated curriculum works, because it does feel they are throwing stuff in everywhere. I found out Kaplan ME does a nice job organizing certain drugs.

 

[Orthodoc40]

Wow, no pharm class???!!

 

[username456789]

Wow, no pharm class???!!

Nope, it's just a part of our Pathophysiology course as we go. Sucks.

 

[knuckles]

Nope, it's just a part of our Pathophysiology course as we go. Sucks.

What school do you go to?

 

[linkDO]

yea, seriously. i wouldnt mind working off that chart gman!

 

[tideleonheart]

Quizzing with a friend over FA's pharm sections has worked really well for me so far.

 

[PokerDoc]

for pharm on step I anyway, im noticing the adrenergic cholinergic stuff is way more important than antibiotics.

 

[radiodoc99]

Pharm flashcards help a lot

 

[drizzt3117]

Nope, it's just a part of our Pathophysiology course as we go. Sucks.

Cornell?

I used the Lange pharm cards, they were ok but didn't have all the drugs you needed. The ones called "pharmcards" are supposed to be better though.

 

[IMGUSMLEStep1]

Hey all,

Am beginning pharm course now. Was told by upperclassmen to start making flashcards/a drug list for every drug studied in class... then save the relevant ones for board review!

I was just wondering, for those of you that have done this, what informaiton have you included?

And also, does usmle test brand names and generic names?

Instead of making flash cards, just buy Brenner's or Lange flash cards.

 

[PokerDoc]

Instead of making flash cards, just buy Brenner's or Lange flash cards.

I've always found that actually making the cards helps me more than reviewing them.. when I used to make flashcards sometimes the test would creep up on me too quickly i never had time to look at the cards I made, but just making them made me memorize most of it.

 

[IMGUSMLEStep1]

I've always found that actually making the cards helps me more than reviewing them.. when I used to make flashcards sometimes the test would creep up on me too quickly i never had time to look at the cards I made, but just making them made me memorize most of it.

I agree, but making flash cards can sometimes be way too time consuming, especially for pharm where you have 100's of drugs.

I use a program called Anki, which actually makes creating flash cards so much faster. Nevertheless, I like my Brenner's pharm cards a lot! They've helped me so much.

 

[NRAI2001]

I felt like Pharm was my weakest point when I started my Step studying... my school crammed all of Pharm into 1 semester right at the end of our 2nd year. I think I ve spent just as much time on Pharm as I have on patho..It took me almost 2 weeks of studying to finally feel pretty comfortable with it.

Good thing though IMO once you get a good grasp on Path and Pharm every other subject you can do very quickly. I did all of Micro (which I also thought was going to be a weakness) in 3-4 days... Probably spend like 2 days on physio, 2 days on neuro...etc