Customer Reviews

Visual Mnemonics for Pharmacology

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

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.

...

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.

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.

I love this book! The pictures are funny and easy to remember, and it has most of the information that I need. Plus, the room for notes is really helpful.

I have found this book and the others in the series very helpful. I am a very visual learner and have found the illustrations easy to recall if I put the time and effort into memorizing them. The pictures are linked together in a thoughtful and logical manner. For example, an entire class of antibiotics is placed on one page which makes them very easy to remember. There is also a notes page opposite the illustrations for anything additional that I want to add. This is a very different method of learning as far having all the details placed on one illustration for memorization. The problem that I had with the Micro Made Ridiculously Simple is that there were not enough illustrations and the ones that were there were not detailed enough so that I still had to memorize the text.
I am now into my third year of medical school and can still recall the illustrations quickly when I am getting pimped on the floor. I can honestly say that this book and the others is an excellent way of memorizing and longer lasting recall. I don't understand why anyone would not find this series useful and easy to use.

At first i was doubting the ability of the book to "work" but after i just glanced at the book, flipped through some pages reading some stuff My friend asked me about it a couple of hours later and i could actually recall some of the stuff in it! This is a MUST for all those over-worked tired medical students! Apart from it being fun to read it actually works! This is how i passed and excelled at pharmacology, could not have done it without this book! Well worth it.

This book was very helpful and it is truly amazing how quickly I learned the material. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to cut down study time and remember facts for a longer period of time. Plus, the cartoons are entertaining at the same time!

Great cartoons for memorizing the drugs! I would recommend this book to anyone studying pharmacology. This format is much more fun than just looking at charts.

I pass step 1,2. I'm ready for my residency and I still use it. Every time I get confused with meds name or don't remember the family; I go in my brain and look for the pictures. This book really works.

I think this book is for the visual learner, like me, who hates to sit and memorize facts off a sheet of paper. Others who are not visual learners may find the cartoons useful at all, but I would certainly say they were very helpful to me.