Pharmacology Basics, part 1: Introduction, Drug Names, Medication Regulation and Reconciliation

Hi. I'm Cathy with Level Up RN, and this is the first video in our Pharm Basics video playlist. So this playlist is intended to help you build a strong foundation for pharmacology.

We'll be going over information such as medications, pharmacokinetics, prescriptions, as well as routes of administration, and I will be covering the key facts and concepts you need to know to be successful on your nursing exams and on the NCLEX, and it will help you be well-positioned to learn actual medications.

So this video playlist will not be going over specific medications. We have a separate playlist for that information. Again, it's intended to really lay that strong foundation, which is really important.

So during this playlist, I will be following along with our Pharm Basics flashcards. So if you have those flashcards, you're going to be able to follow along very easily. You don't need our flashcards to get value out of this video series; however, they are an excellent resource, and learning all of this information often takes repetition, and that's where our flashcards come in.

So both practical nurses and registered nurses can benefit from this video playlist. So there's a lot of overlap between these two programs. The important thing to remember if you're a practical nurse is your scope of practice. And then, in this video playlist, I'm going to try something new. I'm going to start giving you guys little quizzes at the end of each video to test your knowledge about some of the concepts that I have covered in the video. So I hope you'll like that. Definitely leave me a comment. And if you're new to our channel, be sure to subscribe. We're so happy you're here.

Okay. In this first video, I am going to go over drug names as well as medication reconciliation and regulation.

All right. So let's first talk about drug names. With drugs, we have a chemical name, a generic name, and a brand name.

So the chemical name conveys the exact chemical constitution of a medication including the placement of atoms. So if you had to take an organic chemistry class as a prerequisite for nursing school, then you may be familiar with these types of names. I'm happy to report that as a nursing student and a practicing nurse, you do not have to know chemical names. So if there's a nurse out there watching who's like, "I do have to know chemical names," then leave me a comment and school me on that, and it also will give me a heads-up for what position I don't want to ever have because I am not interested in learning chemical names for drugs.

Then we have our generic names. So the generic name can be used by any country or manufacturer, and the first letter of that drug name is not capitalized. So an example of a generic drug name would be acetaminophen, and acetaminophen is the generic name for Tylenol, and Tylenol is that brand name. So the use of the word Tylenol is restricted to only that manufacturer, and the first letter of the brand name is capitalized.

Now, as a nursing student and a nurse, I highly, highly encourage you to really focus on the generic names of medications because when you're taking a test, the generic name of a medication will always be given. However, you will often not be given the brand name. So if you learn a brand name and not the generic name, and then that generic name shows up on a test, you're going to be out of luck. So definitely learn the generic names of medications.

All right. Next, let's talk about medication regulation, starting with the U.S. Drug Schedule.

So medications that have the potential for abuse are categorized. So we have Category I, Category II, III, IV, and V.

Category I medications have the highest potential for abuse and would include things like heroin or LSD.

Category V medications have a lower risk of abuse but still a potential for abuse, and a Category V medication may include cough medicines with codeine. So in terms of regulations around these scheduled drugs, these regulations may vary across states, but in general, telephone orders are not acceptable.

So the provider must write and sign the order for these medications. Also, no refills are allowed, and if the patient needs more of one of these medications, they will need to go visit the provider first, who will write a new prescription for that patient.

All right. Let's now talk about drug-risk classification for pregnancy. So we have different kind of categorization here. We have A, B, C, D, and X.

So Category A is the safest during pregnancy, and Category X is the most dangerous during pregnancy. My advice to you is when in doubt, assume all medications are not safe during pregnancy unless otherwise noted by the provider.

The last thing I want to cover in this video is medication reconciliation. This is where you compile a complete and updated list of all of the medications that your patient is taking, including over-the-counter medications and herbal supplements. And we're going to be comparing that list to the provider's orders. And it's really important that we do this to maintain consistency with the medications that the patient is taking and also evaluate for any possible interactions between their prescribed medications, as well as their herbal supplements, and what the doctor has ordered.

So there are some key herbal supplements that are known to cause interactions with prescribed medications. So I've listed some of the common interactions that you may find on card number 3. So this includes ginger, garlic, Ginkgo biloba, St. John's wort, valerian, and saw palmetto. So just refer to that short list to kind of know what interactions to look out for when your patient is taking one of these herbal supplements.

All right. Time for a quiz. So my quizzes are going to be really straightforward. These particular questions I'm going to give you now are true/false. So we're not doing any select-all-that-apply or case studies or anything super involved. So question number one. Category I scheduled medications have the lowest risk for abuse. True or false? The answer is false. Category I scheduled medications have the highest risk for abuse, and Category V has a lower risk for abuse. Okay. Question number two. When performing a medication reconciliation, you need to include herbal supplements that your patient takes. True or false? The answer is true. Many of these herbal supplements have interactions with other prescribed medications, so it's going to be really important for you to get that information. Number three. Prescriptions for scheduled drugs can include a maximum of one refill. True or false? The answer is false. There are no refills allowed for scheduled medications.

All right. Hope you did well with that little quiz. If you missed anything, you might want to go back and watch the video again or review our flashcards. Thank you so much for watching.