A big chuck of Paramedic school consists of Pharmacology. My program is designed that every week we have a cumulative drug quiz that consists of the new drug of the week and possible dosages and information on every previous drug that we have studied up until that point.
I don't know how this stacks up against how other paramedic programs do pharmacology. But this path seems (to me) to lend itself to a lot of rote memorization. Which is funny, because medicine is one big interlocking web and understanding how the whole system works makes it easier to understand how the whole system works.
So, there are a few tips that I have picked up along the way that have helped me.
Understanding Functional Classes
Its not only important to know that Epi is a sympathomimetic, but it is very important to understand what a sympathomimetic is. If you understand what actually the underlying functional class of the drug is, then it is a lot easier to understand what the drug does, and you know what a selective beta-2 agonist is. If you have an understanding of the sympathetic nervous system to begin with.
Does that answer make sense?
Our med quizzes also have at least 1 or 2 questions about med math, and luckily enough, the math is usually based on actual drugs and actual dosages, so I never have had to worry about whether the answer of 950 gtts/min is the right answer.
But I have found that if I can get the per ml concentration, I can get to the answer or back to the start without relying on "the formula" too much.
I will post some more ideas when I think of them I guess...
We just started pharm in the course i'm taking and my instructor seems to lean heavily toward the side of understanding the autonomic nervous system, parasympathetic vs. sympathetic, neurotransmitters, receptors, and so on...He told us that you can train a monkey to memorize doses and calculate drip rates, but he wants paramedics that actually think about what they are doing, and maybe more importantly WHY. So far I agree with his approach.
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