Learn Medications In Family Medicine Visits

[B3.572A]

I am in my first year, and doing family doctor office visits. Today the preceptor explained many pain/anti-depressant medications to me, but I do not feel I really learned them well. My partner seems to know a lot more about medications than me. Is there a way, perhaps a pocket handbook, to efficiently learn about the most common medications prescribed in a family doctor's office? Thanks!

[ellorie]

You will learn things over time, through repetition and clinical experience.

 

One way is to read around your cases, so instead of trying to memorize all the drugs, think of one of the patients you saw, and the drug that was used.  Then look up some information about it and try to apply it to the patient you saw.  If you do that regularly, you'll build up a knowledge base.

 

For looking up drugs on the fly, I like epocrates or medscape, both are apps/websites.

[Lactic Folly]

I like Drugs and Drugs by Hamilton and Hui.

 

http://homer.med.ualberta.ca/clint/hirex.asp?FNOTIFY=1312@drugsdrugshirex

[B3.572A]

Thanks a lot for the great advice. I appreciate your help.

[NLengr]

Medscape also has a ton of clinical disease and procedural info. For free. It's awesome when you are a clerk and junior resident. Or if you are looking up something outside your specialty.

 

I used to use epocrates but I got sick of paying for it (I had the full version, not the drug only version).

[GrumpyMoriarty]

Advise from all my supervising preceptors so far: Go home and read around your cases. Admittedly its much harder to do in pre-clerkship as we have all sorts of other school-work to deal with, but that's probably something to keep in mind during clerkship and beyond. Other than that: Epocrates and Medscape both tend to be great mobile resources to look up drugs quickly but it takes some getting used to. I gave up on trying to memorize dosages at this point since its not really useful and I am hardly qualified to prescribe, so I just skip to the pharmacology/mechanism of action section to understand what the drug does. 

[ellorie]

Heh it's actually just going to be harder in clerkship, because you'll still be studying for exams and you'll also be on call and working crummy hours, and eventually also dealing with CaRMS etc.

 

What will be easier is you'll be getting more exposure and more clinical context and more repetition of the same drugs.

[B3.572A]

Thanks for the great advice, everyone. It seems reading around cases is the consensus, and I am trying to do that. Thanks also for pointing out the resources

[JohnGrisham]

I am in my first year, and doing family doctor office visits. Today the preceptor explained many pain/anti-depressant medications to me, but I do not feel I really learned them well. My partner seems to know a lot more about medications than me. Is there a way, perhaps a pocket handbook, to efficiently learn about the most common medications prescribed in a family doctor's office? Thanks!

Is your partner a pharmacist? Did pharmacology in undergrad?

 

Don't worry about it, its first year - you aren't expected to know that level of information by heart yet. It would be pointless, focus on fundamentals.

 

When you're doing it day in day out in clerkship, the common drugs will start to stick. That's the golden advice upper years and residents have given me anyways.

[B3.572A]

Is your partner a pharmacist? Did pharmacology in undergrad?

 

Don't worry about it, its first year - you aren't expected to know that level of information by heart yet. It would be pointless, focus on fundamentals.

 

When you're doing it day in day out in clerkship, the common drugs will start to stick. That's the golden advice upper years and residents have given me anyways.

 

Thanks for the advice, Commons. Very good point