"What books I should have bought for Pharmacy school?"

Started by Sirius77
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Sirius77

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We all know the different books that each school requires as your text always aren't the best text for the subject they are suppose to cover. So I thought I would throw out the question, as to which books you have found to be very helpful? This could be a course required textbook or even a book that was recommended to you, that helped a great deal.

I have applied to pharmacy school, haven't been accepted, so I am wondering what books you guys have found helpful in school?

Just based upon reviews at Amazon (I know you can't fully trust them, but. . .)

1- Tarascon Pocket Pharmacopedia (1882742427) looks good, thoughts?

2- Pharmacology examination and review (0071422900) Anyone that can compare or contrast this book against Lippincott's Illustrated Reviews: Pharmacology (0781741181 )?

Thanks,

Mike
 
One of the best intro books, in my opinion is the Lippincott's Pharmacology book. I liked how it condensed the topics into understandable amounts of information.
 
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Sirius77 said:
We all know the different books that each school requires as your text always aren't the best text for the subject they are suppose to cover. So I thought I would throw out the question, as to which books you have found to be very helpful? This could be a course required textbook or even a book that was recommended to you, that helped a great deal.

I have applied to pharmacy school, haven't been accepted, so I am wondering what books you guys have found helpful in school?

Just based upon reviews at Amazon (I know you can't fully trust them, but. . .)

1- Tarascon Pocket Pharmacopedia (1882742427) looks good, thoughts?

2- Pharmacology examination and review (0071422900) Anyone that can compare or contrast this book against Lippincott's Illustrated Reviews: Pharmacology (0781741181 )?

Thanks,

Mike
Click to expand...
You don't need either one of the books you mentioned to start. For a general drug reference, I like the APhA Drug Information Handbook. I'm a P1, and I find myself looking things up in this book a lot. I have the Lippincott pharmacology book, and also their Biochemistry review - both are really good. I also have a copy of the Katzung Basic & Clinical Pharmacology. That's probably a bit of overkill to start out pharmacy school, but I had a good coupon and bought it off the rack at Borders. I've used that a few times when I wanted a good explanation of how a particular drug worked. The other thing that I have found useful is just a cheap, pocket medical terms dictionary. I'm sure there is somewhere easy to go on the Internet for that, but I don't have a laptop so sometimes it's just easier to pick up the book.
 
rxlynn said:
You don't need either one of the books you mentioned to start. For a general drug reference, I like the APhA Drug Information Handbook. I'm a P1, and I find myself looking things up in this book a lot. I have the Lippincott pharmacology book, and also their Biochemistry review - both are really good. I also have a copy of the Katzung Basic & Clinical Pharmacology. That's probably a bit of overkill to start out pharmacy school, but I had a good coupon and bought it off the rack at Borders. I've used that a few times when I wanted a good explanation of how a particular drug worked. The other thing that I have found useful is just a cheap, pocket medical terms dictionary. I'm sure there is somewhere easy to go on the Internet for that, but I don't have a laptop so sometimes it's just easier to pick up the book.
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Do you have the ISBN of the drug reference guide? The closest reference book that I came up with was Lexi Comp's Drug Information Handbook (1591951291). It's about $50, do you know of another drug guide that is cheaper?
 
rxlynn said:
[. . .]That's probably a bit of overkill to start out pharmacy school, but I had a good coupon and bought it off the rack at Borders [. . .]
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Nah, Goodman and Gilman's is overkill for starting pharmacy school. That said - I love G&G. It takes some patience to sift through the incredible amounts of detail in some chapters - especially when it comes to general concepts. The discussion of specific drugs is more concise. But, I'd rather have too much detail in a reference book than too little.

Before you buy one, though, check with your school's library to see if they have the electronic edition (it's available through StatRef, for example). Try it out there and, if you like, buy it. At ~2000 pages, it's a bitch to carry around. They should sell it with it's own trolley cart or something. Or it should hover behind me as I move about. 🙂

I second the APhA's Drug Info Handbook. One of my study partners has one and we're always reaching for it. I think I'll probably get one of my own for next year.
 
Sirius77 said:
Do you have the ISBN of the drug reference guide? The closest reference book that I came up with was Lexi Comp's Drug Information Handbook (1591951291). It's about $50, do you know of another drug guide that is cheaper?
Click to expand...

I think you're close. I have an APhA catalog and the IBSN is 978-1-59195-203-9. That's for the 15th edition that comes out sometime this month. The 14th edition is ISBN 978-1-59195-129-2. It's $54.95 from APhA ($52 for members).
 
Sirius77 said:
Do you have the ISBN of the drug reference guide? The closest reference book that I came up with was Lexi Comp's Drug Information Handbook (1591951291). It's about $50, do you know of another drug guide that is cheaper?
Click to expand...

I bought mine off ebay - it was around $40, I think. You should be able to find it cheaper than the list price from APhA.
 
I use Pharmacotherapy Handbook and Lexi-Comp's Drug Information Handbook a lot. I borrow an old edition (2006-2007) DI handbook from my school library 😉
 
I am with you all about Wikipedia. But I do like the lexi-comp drug information handbook and infectious disease handbook. My school required that we had these. However, if you are a computer person, you can get a subscription to lexi-comp online and it is more upto date than the books. I don't know how much that cost,and some schools might even have a free subscription for their students. That said, i like lexi-comp better than micromedex as far as a drug information resource, it is just easier to shift through and then if I need more information I go to micromedex!
 
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Can Wikipedia really substitute these books? I would not think that thety would cover topics as detailed
 
Wikipedia is awesome. However, you can't reference it. I use Lexi-Complete, but on my PDA. If you want to buy a book to understand things and not just list facts, get G & G.

Sirius77 - That's the Broadway channel. It's one of my presets.
 
Wikipedia is getting better, what with the referencing that is going on now and all, especially amongst PubMed-able topics.
 
Actually, what I was saying was that Wikipedia now has many of its facts referenced to proper primary sources.

I've been able to look up information in Wikipedia, then read through the actual article in Nature that Wikipedia pointed to, and I then referenced that article.
 
I have this book "Basic and Clinical Pharmacology" by Bertram Katzung, which I bought for my pharmacology class. But I never used it. Does anyone know any pharmacy school use this book? I am also trying to decide whether I should sell my biochemistry book. What do you guys think? Should I keep them?
I am actually planning to attend USN. Any suggestions from a current USNer would be really appreciated.
 
What's great about USN is that all the materials you need are available on the schools server for you to upload onto your computer whenever you need it. So this virtually eliminates the need for text books.

USN does also has a library with a lot of additional resources, but a lot of the students that I've talked to haven't ever really had to use it.

I have heard that it's a good idea to get a pharmaceutical calculations book, and some people I've talked to have suggested a pharmacopoeia reference book too.

I'm personally not planning on buying anything yet, not until I see if I really need it. I am planning on keeping my biochem book for a reference though, I have a feeling it might come in handy.
 
dinu said:
I have this book "Basic and Clinical Pharmacology" by Bertram Katzung, which I bought for my pharmacology class. But I never used it. Does anyone know any pharmacy school use this book? I am also trying to decide whether I should sell my biochemistry book. What do you guys think? Should I keep them?
I am actually planning to attend USN. Any suggestions from a current USNer would be really appreciated.
Click to expand...

I don't go to USN, but I used the electronic version of Basic and Clinical Pharmacology at my library to study for an exam last week. Personally, I think "basic" is good when learning things for the first time. I thought the book was helpful in presenting the broad concepts. Some of the figures were especially useful. It's well-written and organized. I'd hang onto it.
 
dinu said:
I have this book "Basic and Clinical Pharmacology" by Bertram Katzung, which I bought for my pharmacology class. But I never used it. Does anyone know any pharmacy school use this book?
Click to expand...
My school uses Goodman & Gillman, but I noticed a lot of the images and tables our pharmacology professor uses in her slides were referenced as Katzung. I thought they were way more useful than G&G, so I bought Katzung. However, I bought the abbreviated "board review" version. I like it--each chapter is pretty short and I always read over it after I've read everything else. My friend bought the full-fledge version, but I haven't looked at it much. I imagine it is just as good, if not better.

Sometimes it is just good to read about the same topic from multiple perspectives. Sometimes one way of explaining it will just click when all the others left you confused. And, sometimes one source will add a little extra detail that the others left out.

Bottom line: keep it. But actually use it!
 
A few things:

1. If you do get into pharmacy school, please do not ever reference wikipedia in a presentation. I actually cannot believe that several people admitted to relying on such a site for their drug/pharmacy information.

2. The DI Handbook is notorious for having several mistakes and being highly oversimplified. However, it is probably as basic as you can get.

3. You should worry about getting into Pharmacy School before you worry about which textbooks to invest in. Most curriculums do not even begin teaching Pharmacology/Therapeutics until year two. If you want to start preparing early, you should probably purchase a book dedicated to Pathophysiology. It is imperative to understand the dysfunction of the human body before you start learning about drugs that help restore that function. My first year, I found the one authored by Porth to be very good.

4. I don't think Pharmacotherapy: A Pathophsiologic Approach by DiPiro has been mentioned yet. This is sometimes regarded as the almighty of tertiary references.
 
I agree with all the points that the last poster made, especially point #1. Using wikipedia is intellectually dangerous. We've had students in our class actually try to cite it... they must have been embarrassed when it was announced to the class that that is unacceptable.
 
twester said:
I don't go to USN, but I used the electronic version of Basic and Clinical Pharmacology at my library to study for an exam last week. Personally, I think "basic" is good when learning things for the first time. I thought the book was helpful in presenting the broad concepts. Some of the figures were especially useful. It's well-written and organized. I'd hang onto it.
Click to expand...

I have this book (the long version, not the board version). I have used it several times this year (I'm a p1) for some small class projects and as a reference for a few things. I like it because I found it generally understandable even though I haven't had any pharmacology/kinetics/pathophys yet. So, I agree - keep it around. It might be more useful than you think.
 
I just found a good book, that pharmacy students should be familiar with. It is call Comprehensive Pharmacy Review, while it is a board review book, it has great review questions, that I have found helpful when preparing for exams. It is broke down into sections, that are basically how classes are split up, at least at UK.
 
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Sirius77 said:
1- Tarascon Pocket Pharmacopedia (1882742427) looks good, thoughts?
Click to expand...
I'm curious about this one, too. Any one have any experience with it? I've looked at, and it seems too jumbled up for me, but it must be popular cause my favorite bookstore keeps a large inventory of it...
 
geekinthepink said:
One of the best intro books, in my opinion is the Lippincott's Pharmacology book. I liked how it condensed the topics into understandable amounts of information.
Click to expand...

Strangely, I picked that up at random, not knowing anything, when I started studying for the PTCB exam. Good to know it's considered among the best.

I like the stick figure people. 😛
 
twester said:
Nah, Goodman and Gilman's is overkill for starting pharmacy school.
Click to expand...

I suppose better overkill than under...I have an old copy I "inherited" from my dad, and I've been reading it just because I'm a dork who loves the subject. Can't hurt, I'm sure...
 
hey guys...had a question...I have been out of school for about 2 years and going to pharm school this fall...what do u guys suggest going over from undergrad before starting school? Also, do you suggest getting these book mentioned in the previous posts and going over them before starting school?

thanks
 
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