Quick Tip: Beating Pharmacology!
Drugs, drugs, and more drugs! They are a medical students’ worst nightmare. There are so many with similar features that after a while they all blend together.
Unfortunately, you need to know them. All of them! USMLE Step 1 medical boards are about 15-20% pharmacology. It can be a very daunting task to remember all the drugs but here is a quick-tip to aid you in your task.
The problem:
We all have made and studied from note cards. The problem is note cards are pure memorization. The information you need to know for the USMLE Step 1 boards is so voluminous that note cards might not be enough to get you the great score you want.
The Solution: Pharm Charts
Here is a quick-tip to turn your ordinary drug note cards into a great boards score!
Pharm Charts is a technique to replace your note cards. Here is what you do:
Grab a single sheet of paper and horizontally divide it into 3 columns. Each column will have a different drug = 3 drugs per sheet. Write the name of the drug on the top of the column (preferably in a bold black color). Half way down the column, start writing your drug information. Begin with its drug class. Then, write the mechanism of action in blue ink. Next, write the uses of the drug in green ink (green means go!) and the side effects in red ink (red means stop!). Finally, add any additional information in black at the bottom of the column. Continue to do this for every drug you see. When you are finished review every sheet over and over again until you know them cold.
*You can also do a modified version where instead of 3 columns per sheet, you have 6 boxes per sheet.
Why should I do this?
Pharm charts just like note cards are memorization. Here is why this helps you even more on boards. A majority of questions on boards you will narrow down to two answer choices. You have eliminated the others because you know they are wrong but you can’t decide which one is correct. With note cards you know most (if not all) of the information for each drug. It is the same with pharm charts. The difference with pharm charts is photographic memory saves you from your failing memory.
What do we mean?
With pharm charts you not only know the information about the drug but you also passively remember where on your pharm chart information was located (i.e. third column). So when you are faced with deciding what the correct answer is, you can think about where on the pharm chart you saw the relevant information (i.e. top right) and choose the correct answer.
Here’s an easy example: You make a pharm chart of 6 drugs that are used to treat cancer. The question on boards asks which one causes pulmonary fibrosis. You narrow it down to 2 choices. In your head you remember seeing pulmonary fibrosis in the top right of your pharm chart. You also remember that Doxorubicin, one of your choices, was on the bottom left of your pharm chart. You pick the other choice, Bleomycin, and you are correct. It really works just like that. It’s not a gimmick. It’s just a little trick to give you that extra edge on boards. Try it and you too will be on your way to beating those drugs!
