My Pharmacology textbook…
…reads like stereo instructions…except stereo instructions sometimes have pictures to help you figure them out.
Grr,
Teenie
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…reads like stereo instructions…except stereo instructions sometimes have pictures to help you figure them out.
Grr,
Teenie
on June 1, 2008 on 8:34 am
Things I kno about pharmacology:
The S/E for everything is H/A, N/V, and “xyz”.
.
You *will not* learn all the drugs, so don’t set yourself up for failure.
“Usta be” in the 50’s, there were about 450 different drugs, and nurses actually had to learn all the drugs.
.
Now there are approximately 9,000 drugs available for use and approved
by the FDA. (And put on and taken off the market all the time.)
Learn the “classes” of drugs. Find out (ask or watch) what the top 3 most commonly used drugs for the ailment or heart condition are. Make flashcards and get the word recognition in your head; to me, it looked like a bunch of letters with nothing to connect it to until I started getting the “olol” and the “pines” and the “rils” connected, and then there was always one drug that didn’t fit the pattern.
.
Wun of the many things I liked about the E.D. was that there were about 60 or so drugs commonly used, (heart trouble and breathing treatments & such) and the rest of the elebenty drugs were either what the pt. brought frum home or were given on the floor, and *not my problem!*
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Another thing that helps is that you don’t have to invent this stuff, you just have to recognize it and kno what to do with it. Kno enough to question it if the doctor orders you to give 50 mg of potassium as an IV push – that’s how they execute criminals – don’t do it!
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Take heart – I have seen experienced, licensed personnel check their drug book before they give a medication if they weren’t familiar with it or didn’t kno why their pt. was receiving it, or just had a feeling this drug wasn’t rite for this pt. There is no shame in looking it up. There is much, much shame in medication errors. Not to mention liability.
Find a drug book that is your friend. (Somebody I graduted wif uses a Palm Pilot – too much technology for me! I like a book, or looking it up on the hospital computer.)
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You’re doing teh right things. Keep doing teh right things.
You will get where you want to be. f.r.
on June 1, 2008 on 12:10 pm
Thanks f.r., that helped a lot. I’m getting a little frustrated because I’ve always been a good reader and this is the first time I’ve had to read and re-read the same paragraph to try and get some meaning out of it. I have my drug book and my medical dictionary right next to me (although there is a kitteh on the dictionary at the moment) but it’s still hard to understand. Eventually some of it HAS to sink in, right?