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Friday, October 11, 2013

Pharmacology Frustrations

Pharmacology is destroying me!  I know that it is a lot of work, but I don't think I can rise to the occasion and survive in this class. I am pretty sure I just got a D on my last test. How am I supposed to memorize every MOA, dosage, side effect, implication, teaching point, drug category, and everything else about every single drug ever created and currently used?

I get into this dangerous mindset of frustration with my teacher because this is her first year teaching and last year's teacher was amazing. Last year, students could use notes and books to do their quizzes and tests. The teacher taught so that the students understood what they needed to know and I have heard that lectures were full of interesting stories to help students remember the drugs.

This year, we get out after an hour (the class is scheduled for three) because our teacher just reads the power points. We are taking quizzes every week that most people report to be failing. Then, her tests seem to come out of nowhere because she is taking the questions from the test banks that come with the book. Maybe it's just because I'm not great at memorizing and I get frustrated when I get bad grades. I know that bad grades are my fault because I should have studied more. Still, I very much dislike that I hear all these great things about pharm last year from my friends who had last year's teacher and now I have to have a teacher who doesn't know what she's doing and so she is asking so much of us that really seems unreasonable.

New teachers are frustrating for me. I had a new A&P teacher last year who said one thing and did another. This year, my Pharm teacher does the same thing. Neither one knows what they are doing when they are teaching the class. Also, one of my teachers that teaches 2 other classes was new last year and is still trying things out. She too says one thing in class and does something entirely different. It doesn't seem like I'm getting the quality education that I am paying for and it doesn't seem like I'm learning the way I need to be learning. New teachers required the students to teach them how to teach us. This is so frustrating because the teachers feel like they know what they are doing because they got the Master's or Doctorate Degree. That's not how it works.

For those of you who are nurses out there or who are going through nursing school, how do you study for pharmacology? What did your teacher do that helped/hindered your learning? How do I survive this class?

Sorry for the meltdown rant. I don't know how I am ever going to get through this semester because this is ridiculous! It also seems like this whole post negates what I said about talking nice about people. I'm a hypocrite... I considered not posting this, but it's real and I don't want to seem "holier than thou" because I do get frustrated with people. I get irrationally angry and I vent.

Today is not one of my good days. It didn't start well and it's getting worse due to my bad grade on the test and the fact that I have to go to Pharm today. Days like this make me wish that 1) I could be a nurse already, 2) I would have been able to go through this program last year or preferably the year before, 3) I had a boyfriend, and 4) that I was smarter and better at studying. My stomach hurts from all the worrying and I keep bursting out in tears for no reason. The life has been sucked out of me and hopelessness is now a constant state of mind. I don't know what to do and I just want to shut down.

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