Ellie Swain
Pharmacology refers to the study of medications typically given to patients to help them manage pain. Studying this comprehensive list of drugs and their classifications can be challenging and overwhelming.
Students are expected to know about each medication, their mechanisms of action, routes of administration, eliminations, drug interactions and so much more.
Recognizing each medication and learning the similarities and differences between the drugs is essential to understanding pharmacology.
Often, students need to learn a lot in a short period.
Fortunately, there are plenty of study tips to help you learn all the medication types. Here’s how to study pharmacology.
10 Tips for Studying Pharmacology
Follow these 10 tips to study pharmacology better.
1. Create a study plan.
Students are expected to learn a lot to pass their pharmacology exams—all within a short period. This can leave people feeling defeated and overwhelmed.
Try to devise a study plan so you can organize your workload ahead of your exams. For example, it might benefit you to review material at night after dinner or to do practice quizzes with a classmate. Or, you may be someone who works better alone in a café or a library.
Determine what works for you, and stick to a plan.
2. Practice spaced repetition.
When studying new material, you should wait a short amount of time between each review, otherwise known as spaced repetition. Spaced repetition ensures that you gain and retain new knowledge while also bringing up concepts you learned a while ago. It helps to keep that information fresh in your memory.
These spaced intervals will significantly help you improve your long-term memory recall. Practice spaced repetition to learn more effectively, improve your academic performance and be a better health care professional because you always remember what you studied.
3. Find patterns to help you learn more.
Medications are organized based on how they affect the body. The different categories are given different name endings. Therefore, you can look at the endings of the drug names to determine the categories and how they work.
For example, “pril” endings are organized as ACE inhibitors, which all provide the same effects as they act on the heart and kidneys. ‘Ramipril’ is an example of an ACE inhibitor.
Likewise, “olol” endings are beta-blockers that affect the heart, lungs, GI and kidneys. Propranolol is an example of a commonly used beta blocker.
Learn what the parts of the word mean, and you’ll know a lot about what the medication is ultimately used for.
4. Grab a study buddy.
Test yourself with someone else to see what you do and don’t know, whether this person is a fellow pharmacology student or a friend or family member helping out. Verbalizing medications can be very useful in helping you remember the names of certain drugs.
Likewise, if your study buddy is studying pharmacology too, teaching them is a great way to test your understanding.
Using flashcards to test each other is a great way to help the information stick.
5. Practice NCLEX-style questions.
The National Council Licensure Examination (NCLEX) is a nationwide examination for the licensing of nurses. NCLEX-style questions can often be quite intimidating and challenging. But one way to become more confident and stronger in your pharmacology studies is by practicing questions from an NCLEX book.
If your school uses the Assessment Technology Institute (ATI) testing and review program, you can test yourself with dynamic quizzes and pharmacology questions.
6. Create a chart of the drugs.
As you study pharmacology, create a chart of the drugs in Microsoft Excel. You can use the chart as your study guide before your exams.
Organize the medications by category, and mention the essential side effects and any other relevant information taught by your professor or learned elsewhere. By continuously adding to the chart, you can avoid last-minute scrambling to remember hundreds of drugs when it’s exam time.
7. Save your notes.
While it may be tempting to throw away your notes after studying so hard for any exam, don’t.
For most nursing programs, drugs will come up several times and may be relevant in various courses. For example, you may learn about magnesium sulfate in your woman’s health course, and it could also come up in a medical surgery or critical care course.
Keep your notes, flashcards, learning apps and books that you use to study throughout your course.
8. Communicate with your professors and tutors.
Just like other nursing programs, your professors and tutors are there to help you through your pharmacology course. If there’s something you’re struggling with or don’t understand, don’t be shy to reach out for help.
Your professors and tutors are there for you and want you to do well. Most nursing schools today provide online learning that allows students and tutors to communicate more effectively. Most will also allow you to schedule an appointment with your professor or attend a study session.
9. Study in your way.
Only you know what works best for you and what doesn’t, so be sure to study your way. Study intentionally and avoid personal distractions. This may involve working in a quiet place, putting your phone away or asking friends and family not to contact you during specific periods.
Focus on resources that work best for you and not what your peers, tutors or parents may try to push on you.
For example, if you realize that working on your own doesn’t work for you, seek help from discussion groups or try to meet with your professor. If you get distracted easily around others, find somewhere comfortable and get your head down to work.
10. Use visual representation.
Visual presentation can help make the learning process faster while taking complex studying material and making it easier to revise.
Material presented in a graphical representation and flowcharts can be better absorbed by the brain than textual presentation. An infographic or chart can help you learn about a specific medication, its category, class, mechanism of action, interactions with other drugs and more.
When you find a particular topic difficult, try to look for or create a graph, table, infographic or flowchart to help you understand the concept.
Resources to Help you Study Pharmacology
Beyond the aforementioned tips, here are some more helpful resources to study pharmacology.
- Nursing.com: Nursing.com offers plenty of pharmacology study tools, including over 300 cheat sheets, 760 medical images, eight eBooks and 165 anatomy models.
- Dorothy Memory App: Dorothy’s algorithms use spaced repetition to tell you the optimal time to study something so you don’t forget it.
- SimpleNursing YouTube Channel: The SimpleNursing YouTube channel offers over 1,000 fun and visual nursing videos focusing on crucial NCLEX points. The channel has helped thousands of nursing students pass their NCLEX exams and graduate nursing school.
- Level Up RN YouTube Channel: The Level Up RN YouTube Channel provides flashcards, videos, courses, organizational tools and more to help students and nurses enhance their exam performances and nursing careers.
Nursing Key Topics Review: Pharmacology: This book is excellent for anyone who has taken pharmacology but needs those constant refreshers. It’s also ideal for anyone who is preparing for the NCLEX exam. The book covers everything from pharmacologic principles to 19 different categories of drugs.