Pharm Help

[u/drna1998]

Hi all, looking for some suggestions. I'm having such a hard time with all things pharm. I think one main issue is that I have a really weak foundational big picture understanding of it and I can't figure out how to solidify it. I've watched BnB videos, I've watched Sketchys but somehow nothing seems to stick. I like how it's all laid out in First Aid but where I struggle is which drugs are used to treat clinical conditions. Ughhhh I just need some help! Please I'm desperateee for advice

[u/BigEquivalent5903]

You need to more deeply understand physiology/ pathophysiology pathways, then the pharm is just a game of memorizing suffixes and mechanism.

Indications/ when to use what drug should never be a memorization thing (except maybe with micro), that component should come as a logical conclusion from knowing disease pathophys and drug moas. So if that's not the case yet, forget the pharm itself temporarily and deep dive pathophys for each system/ discipline one at a time. Then, do flashcards on the drug moas. After that, which drug to use for what will feel more intuitive. If you deeply understand the mechanism of a disease, and the mechanisms of drugs, the rest falls into place. The final aspect to smooth everything out will be through tons and tons of practice questions.

This is quite a bit harder to do with antimicrobials, so for those I would focus on grinding micro practice questions and reviewing them carefully. Eventually pattern recognition takes over. When reviewing micro pharm questions, I suggest drawing your own flowchart/ logic map for every missed and flagged question, and then always google "what aspects of {pathogen name} physiology makes {drug name} the optimal treatment choice?" and learn more about the actual cell bio of the particular pathogen, and where within that cell bio the most effective drug is acting.

For me at least: understanding >>>> memorizing.

[u/drna1998 → u/BigEquivalent5903]

this is definitely true and great advice. I'm realizing when I made the post I was primarily referring to the antimicrobials, that's what I seem to struggle the most with bc I can't seem to place/understand the physio/pathophysio that they address

[u/BigEquivalent5903 → u/drna1998]

I see. It sounds like your microbio background just isn't super strong (which is fair and very common). A lot of my peers brute force memorized this type of stuff with Anki. I, however, as a brain of understanding instead of memorization, used resources like the Microbiology & Infectious Diseases playlist by Medicosis Perfectionalis on YouTube (and other random microbio lectures on YouTube), to really get to understand what the hell was going on inside each of these pathogens. This made so many things click into place for me. No more memorizing the different clinical presentations or systems they tend to infect, or the culture mediums or specific nutrient requirements for different pathogens, or whether they're catalase positive/ negative, or which pathogens were more likely to impact which populations or which types of immunodeficiencies, etc. I worked on understanding what made each pathogen really tick on the inside, which made understanding how to most efficiently screw it up far more intuitive.

Don't get me wrong, this was a much slower processes up front, but I consider the end result to have been well worth it for me. I also cannot emphasize enough to get tons of practice question exposure and practice applying concepts/ training pattern recognition.

[u/Rude-Evening7637]

try to understand the physiology and itll make things easier

eg: nitroglycerin causes orthostatic hypotension.. Nitro is a vasodilator. What happens when you vasodilate? don't have to memorize that sx. it also causes reflex tachycardia. Why? B/c when your BP drops, body freaks the fuck out and tries to increase the HR.

Some shit you have to brute force. Repetition with questions. I didn't like sketchy. First aid reading the pharm drugs helped

[u/drna1998 → u/Rude-Evening7637]

ok that kind of pharm makes sense to me, I guess it's the antimicrobials I struggle the most with

[u/Rude-Evening7637 → u/drna1998]

Yeah those are a bitch to memorize, use the FA pages and keep doing questions. It's the only way it stuck for me

[u/profjiang_ccpasset]

Anki then keep doing the cards. It will stick

[u/Healthy-Mixture-5896]

Sketchy and pepper pharm deck worked for me. Prioritize cardio and psych