Weirdly enough, I probably would have preferred doing pharmacology the hard way, i.e. learning chemistry to an advanced enough level that I could understand approximately how and why different drugs have the effects that they do.
Is this even possible with the current best theories in medical science? It was my understanding that it was no where near that advanced.
Probably not, but it’s possible to go to a much deeper level of detail than we did, i.e. learning about receptors and physiology, to the point that all you have to memorize, pharmacology-specific, is “drug X is an antagonist for receptor Y”, and the rest (uses, side effects, etc) flows naturally from that. We did some of this, for agonists/antagonists of the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system. (Beta blockers, i.e. metaprolol are, let me draw out this memory for a moment...antagonists of the sympathetic nervous system, which is why they lower blood pressure, because increased heart output is something you get when you stimulate the sympathetic nervous system. I would not have remembered this if I’m just had to memorize it offhand.) I’m sure we could have done more learning of this style...it might have taken 2 or 3 semesters instead of just one, though. Also, some drugs do things that medical science doesn’t understand, i.e. anti-psychotics, and that would still have to be memorized.
Is this even possible with the current best theories in medical science? It was my understanding that it was no where near that advanced.
Probably not, but it’s possible to go to a much deeper level of detail than we did, i.e. learning about receptors and physiology, to the point that all you have to memorize, pharmacology-specific, is “drug X is an antagonist for receptor Y”, and the rest (uses, side effects, etc) flows naturally from that. We did some of this, for agonists/antagonists of the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system. (Beta blockers, i.e. metaprolol are, let me draw out this memory for a moment...antagonists of the sympathetic nervous system, which is why they lower blood pressure, because increased heart output is something you get when you stimulate the sympathetic nervous system. I would not have remembered this if I’m just had to memorize it offhand.) I’m sure we could have done more learning of this style...it might have taken 2 or 3 semesters instead of just one, though. Also, some drugs do things that medical science doesn’t understand, i.e. anti-psychotics, and that would still have to be memorized.