5 Tips on How I Study Pharmacology

If you're having a hard time learning pharmacology, then you're in the right place! Here's 5 tips on how I study pharmacology.

Sometimes, dentists need to prescribe drugs for patients and as dental students, we have to at least understand the basics of pharmacology. I’ll try to explain a little bit about pharmacology in general.

What is Pharmacology?

Pharmacology was derived from Greek words, 'pharmacon' meaning drug and 'logos' meaning discourse in. According to WHO, ‘Drug is a substance used to modify or explore physiological system or pathological states for the benefit of the recipient’. Drugs could also be administered locally or orally and by injection (Singh, 2007).

There are lots of things in pharmacology that you need to understand and memorise at the same time. Its time consuming if you don’t stick to the main points. When I first started learning pharmacology, I was overwhelmed by the amount of terms and drugs that we had to learn and memorise but, about a week later, I managed to summarise the main points for studying pharm. Since then, I actually had fun studying pharmacology! It wasn’t as depressing as I thought.

Then, how do you study Pharmacology?

Well, moving on to the main topic of this post, I’d like to share a few tips on how I study pharmacology, possibly, effectively and efficiently.

1. Read and make a summary of the terms used in pharmacology. Don’t waste your time on just reading. Take notes, as this helps you retain what you learned. Also, you should at least know these terms and understand them because it’ll be very helpful in understanding the rest of the topic later on.

2. Write down types of drugs such as antibiotics, analgesics, etc. Try to understand each and every one of them (how they work, their characteristics, how long does it take for them to react, etc). I recommend looking through scientific journals for this!

3. Make a summary of the most used drugs in dentistry! It'll help you study efficiently and effectively and it's probably the most important tip. There are lots of drugs available out there and it’s impossible to memorise them all so make a list of frequently used drugs in dentistry. It saves a lot of time and might come in handy in the future. Also, keep yourself updated on the latest drugs available around you!

4. Make a list of oral disease or dental cases and write down the drugs needed to treat them. This could help you memorise types of drugs by correlating them with an actual case or disease. The more you understand the characteristics and the pathophysiology of a disease, the easier it’ll be for you to prescribe the right drugs needed.

5. Review your notes everyday. The assumption of retaining information through a one-time study session is false. You have to keep reviewing your notes. Just take 10-15 mins before bed to read through your notes.

And these are the 5 tips I summed up along the way. These worked out for me and I hope this could help you as well. Share this post if it helps because sharing is caring!

Source: Singh, Surrender. 2007. Pharmacology for Dentistry. New Delhi:New Age Publication