Medic Meds

[hollowsoul87]

So Monday we will be starting the 6th week of my paramedic program and I feel like I am not retaining the info as well as I need to be. For example we have been doing cardiology and pharmacology along with airway and lab weekly with cardiology twice a week, labs on weds and pharmacology and airway on Mondays. We go over 3 meds every Monday and have to test on them before the following Monday and I could not tell you any of the previous meds from the other weeks are, I feel like its a memorize and dump mentality which I know is not what should be happening (not just myself that feels like this.) Aside from reviewing the material on a regular basis which I feel I dont have much time for as I am preparing for what we are on currently on. what has everyone else found that works? Some of us usually meet up before class a couple times a week to go over things but aside from that what are some ideas you guys have?

 

[STXmedic]

Flash cards. Make them, go through them every chance you get. Repetition will be your best bet. Quizzing others will also help them to stick. You may have to spread your time out between your subjects a little better. Especially since you're only getting pharm once per week.

Three meds per week shouldn't be bad at all. My brother is in pharm right now, and I've been teaching him about three new drugs three times a week. It's definitely doable.

 

[J B]

Flash cards for everything. Keep reviewing the old ones in addition to the new ones. Go through all of them once per day, every single day, and you'll be golden.

Try to learn what different types of drugs do as well. Beta blockers all pretty much do similar things. If you know that "generally, beta blockers will do X", you can lump drugs in together and remember them more easily. "I don't remember exactly what this drug does, but it's a beta blocker so most likely it does x y and z".

Understanding what the drugs do physiologically also makes them a lot less abstract and easier to learn.

 

[irishboxer384]

I'm a 'visual' learner so when i learnt different meds, simple hand drawn picture cards helped me alot.

For eg write the name of the drug, then for contra-indications you could draw a stick woman with a 'belly' for pregnancy if applicable, or for indications such as anaphylaxis, draw a little picture of a wasp, or a heart shape, or a skull and cross bones for poisoning...

then to remember the dosages for different age groups use different colour markers, so that the same colour always represents the same age group. obviously pictures can't be drawn for everything but if one silly picture can ignite your memory then you're halfway there!

 

[Handsome Robb]

I used a personal sized white board along with the flashcards that I made. I used permanent marker to divide the whiteboard into sections (medication, class, mechanism, indications, contraindications, dose, cautions/warnings) then would use a dry erase marker to write down everything I could remember about the medication I was working on. Once you've written everything you know down refer to the note card and fill in everything you missed on the whiteboard then erase and repeat. You study while making the note cards, can use them by themselves to study, makes you recall information then you study more while you fill in what you're missing.

I wish I had taken a picture of mine before I tossed it so you could see exactly what I'm talking about. Not going to lie though, I was so sick of the thing I couldn't get rid of it fast enough once I graduated.

 

[hollowsoul87]

thanks for the ideas everyone.

 

[hogwiley]

Why are they teaching airway and cardiology at the same time? We covered these subjects separately and focused exclusively on each one while covering them. Seems to me it would be a lot harder to learn both simultaneously, although airway is generally a lot more straight forward and more skills based than cardiology.