Pharmacology preparation- help please!

[mashlee]

The school I've been accepted to has a difficult pharmacology course(faculty and current students have confirmed the difficulty) . In my interviews, one faculty member pointed out that students who have been out of school for a while before starting the program (like me), tend to struggle. She recommended I take some classes especially Pharm to stay sharp, but finances and my situation have made that impossible. I still have 3 months before school starts and was wondering of anyone knew of a good text book or study materials to help prepare me for pharmacology in PA school. thanks

[orangepuma]

I am starting PA school in June and bought pharmacology flashcards off amazon. They have many options, but I decided on mosbys pharm memory note cards because of the reviews and they were roughly $20.

[UGoLong]

Pharm is a different kind of course because most students haven't had it before in their preparation. Even the pharm in medic school is more like "use this for this..." rather than the arrangement of drugs into families, understanding pro-drugs and the CYP 450 system, etc. Frankly, I thought that the pharm in PA school was taught pretty much starting from first principles (volume of distribution, bioavailability, etc) and was self-contained -- you really didn't need to prepare for it but you sure needed to study it when the time came.

 

If it were me, I would spend the time studying anatomy or patho. If you've been out of school for a while, you need to get back in the studying mode. Memorizing drugs way before you need to seems like not such a good way to do that.

 

Good luck. 

[PYRITE]

Antibiotics Simplified by Gallagher and MacDougall is a good place to start (about $25). 

 

http://www.amazon.com/Antibiotics-Simplified-Jason-C-Gallagher-ebook/dp/B00HLK4EN6/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1390962224&sr=8-1&keywords=ANTIBIOTICS+SIMPLIFIED

 

 

[whoRyou]

It was suggested by a friend Goodman and Gilman w/o question.

[WanderlustPA]

Some of my classmates have this book and love it: http://www.amazon.com/Clinical-Pharmacology-Ridiculously-Simple-Medmaster/dp/0940780178

 

Our textbook is this http://www.amazon.com/Pharmacology-Lippincotts-Illustrated-Reviews-Richard/dp/1451113145/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1391726402&sr=1-1&keywords=lippincott+pharmacology

 

I think our textbook breaks it down well, but for me I mainly use the class notes.  Our professor is big on drug interactions and side effects, so it's mostly memorization, though if you know the mechanisms you can reason your way through it without having to memorize everything.  It depends how your class is set up, but I'd say if you can get down some of those mechanisms and what effect you get when you poke each receptor type, you'll be better prepared.