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Hey fellow PA students,

 

I am starting a program in the fall and I have been trying to prepare myself the best I can for the tremendous work load.  I have a pretty relaxed job so during my shift I spend most of my time doing questions on PAeasy, most of which I do not know the answer but I read the explanation and then I read the AccessMedicine online material that comes with it and that provides a tremendous amount of information.  My issue is that my HCE did not provide me with a ton of pharmacology interaction and was wondering if there is any recommended reference that I could use to really break down drugs.  For example, I want to make notecards that say Antibiotics and then list when they should be used and the most common antibiotics, from there each antibiotic gets their own card.  I know a lot of current and graduated PA students say not to study and enjoy your free time over the summer, but I am only doing this at work so any input is GREATLY appreciated.

 

PS I have read that paeasy is not a reliable website, but each answer is in fact backed up by accessmedicine articles that are up to date so I am torn as to what I should read and study and what not to.

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Go to studyblue.com

 

Register there as a user

 

Register your account to the school / PA program you're attending

 

Pay the $30

 

Search for courses (like pharmacology) and look up flash card decks from previous PA students from your program.

 

Add the desired subject / flash cards to your backpack

 

Profit

 

You're welcome

 

=o)

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  • Administrator

Unless they've changed PAEasy, you're better off not using it.  Of all the major test bank services, it had the highest error rate by a mile.

 

There's a podcast on iTunes, the Top 200 Prescribed Drugs, that really helped me when I was studying.  See if it's still around.  It won't help you as much in school as it will in practice assuming you survive PA school. :-)

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I know Touro CA / Touro NV has some. My only concern is that our notecards are geared specifically to the lectures given to us using the PowerPoints that we are being tested off of as our main and only source. So while I can actually post you links to every single flash card covering all the drugs we go through in our program, I'm finding that each teacher has a preference in which drug to use along with a specific focus like adverse drug reactions, the pharmacokinetics, mechanism of action, metabolism or situational uses. So it really would not do you any good to use it unless it comes from people in your program in my opinion. If you have time, you can always read Clinical Pharmacology Made Ridiculously Simple or get the Lippincot's pharm book and build your flash cards from there. Or you can watch Dr Najeeb online. He's great and I watched him before I started PA school and sometimes I still go back and watch his tutorials.

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Each answer is backed by multiple sources in the literature called CURRENT Medical Dx & Tx, so I am assuming that this source is bad as well?

So what if there are references?

 

Doesn't mean they got things right.  In my experience, they did not get things right consistently enough.  If the answer is coded wrong (read the explanation and "B" is the obviously correct answer, but "C" registers as correct if you select it, and "B" as incorrect) you may find that error yourself--I know I found a LOT of them and reported them to the company--or you may skip by, clueless that you've been rewarded for the wrong answer.

 

Does that help explain how fundamentally inferior and broken PAEasy was when I last used it?

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I always liked the Lippincott Illustrated Review series- they have a pharm book that was pretty good (although this was probably 8 editions ago!)

 

Sometimes students get frustrated by pharm because it is not what they think it is. At most schools, it is a basic science course that talks a lot about kinectics, dynamics, volumes of distribution, etc. It can be a little different than germ x = antibiotic y. You would do well to seek advice from people in the class above you if possible.

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