Toughest pharmacy course?

[Heyyyyy]

I just finished pharmaceutics 1 and i am still clueless. Plus, i barely passed this class which kind of sucks. does anybody find pharmaceutics understandable? Any suggestions? like textbooks or internet? thnx

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[MNnaloxone]

What did you cover in 'Ceutics 1? My ceutics is different than yours...

And a pass is a pass. C=PharmD

 

[28657]

Our pharmaceutics material wasn't hard, but the tests were tricky. Our professor tested on minute (almost unimportant) detail, with almost all of the questions like: A. answer, B. answer, C. answer, D. A & B, or E. all of the above. Those are the worst!!!!
The calculations part of the class was based on simple mathematics, but one of my classmates almost failed the course because she couldn't figure it out. She argued to a group of my friends once, "When will pharmacists ever have to use math?!"
Gee...I don't know...maybe everyday

 

[WVUPharm2007]

I'm taking it right now, and I really don't think it's that bad. Biochem is way worse. It makes my brian hurt. And pathophysiology is way worse than biochem, I'm told ( I fear next semester.)

 

[spacecowgirl]

Anything with the word "chemistry" in the title

So far Biochem has been a real thorn in my side - both semesters. But I'm only a P1 so I'm sure there are many more classes to make me miserable!

Pharmaceutics and patho come very easy to me but chemistry - no way!

 

[gdk420]

I think everyone has their own strength and weakness. For me, antimicrobal theory just was the worse. It hurt my brain just sitting there memorizing endless bacteria, their gram stains, their virulent factors, and all the antibiotics that covered them and all the drugs that did not work. Also the pharmacokinetics and the side effects behind all the antibiotics drove me to drink. (yes coffee not liquor ). And u can't always say vancomycin or zoysn for every bug, nor can u say nausea and vomiting for every side effect either.

 

[dgroulx]

Nothing has really been that bad, so far. I was dreading med chem, but I'm actually enjoying organic mechanisms. It's nice to get back to something familiar.

I guess the worst class for me is pharmacology with all the kinetics and metabolism. I'm not really enjoying the material. The classes that deal with disease states is at least interesting to learn, but this is not.

 

[lord999]

Pharmaceutics (Drug Dosage Design and Practice) personally for me.

Depending on the school, Therapeutics easily takes the cake for hardest class.

 

[28657]

Originally posted by Vannie4uBaby
Do you guys think that majoring in Biochem helps when you entering the program? Yup, i've been taking so many biochem courses and I know how hard it is.

Are you asking if it will help you enter the program or if it will help you when you're already in the program?
Having a degree in anything will definitely increase your chances to enter pharmacy school. And I think they would generally appreciate a Biochem degree over a degree in something like sociology.
Having the biochem background should help you a lot when you take classes like Biochemistry, Immunology, Medicinal Chemistry, etc. Of course that's only if it made sense to you the first time around, otherwise you're in the same boat as the rest of us trying to figure this crap out!
We have a PhD in medicinal chemistry in our class and even she had a hard time in Biochem because she took her classes so long ago.

 

[gdk420]

In my personal opinion, I think being a biochemistry major helps a lot. A lot of my classes, most of the biochemistry majors took in undergrad so they had a head start. In addition, a lot of drugs target certain biochemical pathways and other drugs, like certain antibiotics work on DNA gyrase, work on mRNA, and etc. The curriculum comitte at USC has been thinking about making an entire year (instead of one quarter or semister) of biochemistry as a prerequiste. I would also add having lab helps a little when they start talking about some of the biochemical techniques in class like western blot, sds page, southern blot, and etc.

 

[loo]

Pharmacokinetics.

How many times will you calculate the gentamicin dosage, AUC, and total body water of a man with no arms, legs and 1 functioning kidney?


Zero. Unless you are a nephrologist.

 

[Pilot]

I thought the toughest course in pharmacy school was Medicinal Chemistry II. Back when I took it (1996), our course required memorization of every drug structure discussed, and knowing how to draw the structure in different phases of metabolism (glucuronidation, etc.) Then to make it more fun we had to know what the structure would look like in different body fluids (i.e pH changes). I absolutely hate Henderson-Hasselbach (I don't even remember enough about it to know if I am spelling it correctly - I have not had a single situation where I needed to use H-H equation). We also had to memorize and reproduce the chart which is conveniently printed in The Sanford Guide now - whether an antibiotic works for a particular bug.

 

[dgroulx]

Originally posted by Pilot
I thought the toughest course in pharmacy school was Medicinal Chemistry II. Back when I took it (1996), our course required memorization of every drug structure discussed, and knowing how to draw the structure in different phases of metabolism (glucuronidation, etc.) Then to make it more fun we had to know what the structure would look like in different body fluids (i.e pH changes).

My med chem teacher's licencse plate reads PKA 8-10. I'm actually enjoying drawing structures and learning mechanisms. It's a nice break from all the reading intensive courses.

 

[loo]

*shudder*

I thought I had repressed all those nightmarish Med Chem lectures!!!

 

[Ivorymist]

PKinetics hands down. By FAR the toughest class.

 

[keiki]

since this is only my first year, i don't have much to go on. but for now, it's pk... we just took our second exam, and i got killed on the true/false section....

"Following the iv bolus administration of an identical dose of 2 drugs, which exhibit different elimination half lives, the time required for the loss of 95% of the administered dose and the amount eliminated at that time will be different for each drug; however, the number of elimination half lives required for the loss of 75% of the dose will be identical for each drug."

i got it wrong cause i read carelessly and too fast...

 

[dgroulx]

Ugh. I have the pk exam on April 21st. We only have the one exam, so it is pretty much pass/fail. The prof said that our homework counts and it can bring us up a letter grade. I hope I don't screw up.

 

[ultracet]

Pharmacology is by far the hardest class here.... BY FAR