Pharm. Pharmacology. Pharmacotherapy. Drug Therapy. No matter what you call it, learning drug therapy is no doubt hard. In discussions with students, residents, and clinicians over the past 20 years, pharmacology or drug therapy consistently comes up as difficult to learn. Why is that? There are several reasons for this phenomenon:

1. Minimal Didactic Training- Unless you are training to be a pharmacist, only a small portion of the didactic curriculum is devoted to learning pharmacology/drug therapy. Most drug therapy education, especially practical application, takes place on clinical rotations real time which is not ideal.
2. Sheer Volume- As of August 2022, there are over 20,000 prescription drug products approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). How in the world can anyone hope to learn all of these? Truth is you don't need to. But which ones should you know?
3. Patients are Complicated- While drugs undergo rigorous testing and evaluation by the FDA, there is no way to cover all potential patient populations that a medication will likely be potentially used. Some notable factors that can affect drug choice/dose include kidney function, patient allergies, potential for drug interactions, body weight, pregnancy, and many more.

Here at Teach Me Pharm, we have decades of patient care experience along with mentoring/teaching nursing, pharmacy, medical, and PA students within this difficult subject. If interested in learning more about our short videos to help develop your Pharm knowledge base, we have some free videos available to try out for viewing on topics like beta blockers and cephalosporins. Head on over to teachmepharm.com for more information!

Looking forward to helping you learn Pharm!

Chris