Visual Mnemonics for Pharmacology [Paperback]

John W. Pelley (Author), Laurie L. Marbas (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 063204585X | ISBN-13: 978-0632045853 | Publication Date: December 15, 2001 | Edition: 1st

Visual Mnemonics for Pharmacology offers cartoon drawings plus high yield review content - just the book you need!

"Concept diagramming" links basic science ideas with memorable visual aids. Each drawing captures a great deal of information. Formatted with plenty of space for notes and reminders, the illustrations can be colored to further enhance memory.

Laurie Marbas, a third year medical student at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center created this series to learn the concepts. Many of her classmates also used these drawings and reported improved test scores.

Perfect for medical students -- physician assistants, nurse practitioners and related health professionals will also find Visual Mnemonics valuable.

Editorial Reviews

Review

rie's visual mnemonics are amazing. There were so many times during a test when her pictures would pop into my head so vividly. Reeni Abraham, 2nd Year Medical Student visual mnemonics were a tremendous help to me. I found that I could memorize a large amount of information in a small amount of time. But, best of all, it was actually fun. Laurie's creative drawings actually made me look forward to studying. Joe Severs, 2nd Year Medical Student

Product Details

• Paperback: 128 pages
• Publisher: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins; 1st edition (December 15, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 063204585X
• ISBN-13: 978-0632045853
• Product Dimensions: 11.1 x 8.5 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.1 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #980,641 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

27 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars a VERY disappointing purchase, June 28, 2003

By 

"jpcali2" (Irvine, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Visual Mnemonics for Pharmacology (Paperback)

I made the mistake of purchasing this book along with the pathology and microbiology books in this series.

The concept of having a mnemonics book for a subject such as pharmacology is an excellent one. In my opinion, mnemonics are an amazing way to learn subjects that typically require great memorization (e.g. microbiology and pharmacology). Anyone who has read Microbiology Made Ridiculously Simple probably knows how helpful visual mnemonics can be. The problem with this book and the others in this series that I purchased is that the visual cues are very poorly linked together. For a mnemonic illustration to be useful, it is CRUCIAL that the student can recall the illustration in its entirety; to do this, the objects in the diagram must be properly linked in some clever, memorable way. Simply drawing several drug attributes for a given drug class and throwing them onto an already-cluttered illustration is NOT an effective method of facilitating recall. In fact, I found that I could hardly recall the little images at all considering how haphazardly they were all thrown onto a given page. I cannot imagine ANYONE finding this book useful, save for whomever devised the mnemonics.

A FAR better mnemonics book for pharmacology that I found is called The Phunny Pharm. It actually manages to LINK the material together with humorous anecdotes and logical picture associations (similar to micro made simple) so that the information can actually be recalled. In contrast, this book and the other two in this series that I purchased fail to link most drawings at all. This book has very minimal text to accompany the pictures and several of the mnemonics are left completely unexplained. Although the objective of this book makes sense, the manner in which the illustrations are meshed together with little supporting text makes the book a terrible disappointment. I would suggest you save your money and look elsewhere; virtually every friend whom I have shown my visual mnemonics books to has been unimpressed.

...

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars I was duped, April 20, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Visual Mnemonics for Pharmacology (Paperback)

What a waste! I was duped into buying the books in this series by reading the bogus reviews that were OBVIOUSLY posted by the authors. "A reader" from xxxx??? They posted nearly identical reviews for all of their books shortly after publishing them. Save your money and get something in the Made Ridiculously Simple series.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars what a waste, May 21, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Visual Mnemonics for Pharmacology (Paperback)

The cartoons go all over the place and some are so obscure as to be useless to anyone but the person who originated them. Try ridiculously simple or better yet, make your own mnemonics.