PHRM20001: Pharmacology, How Drugs Work

Pretty good subject. Like all the other reviews, I took this subject to fill in a gap in my study plan (needed a random second/third year subject.) It's very good - better then I was expected, and there's a good diversity in topics.

The semester starts with some fairly basic pharmacology. There's a bit on receptors (trivial if you've done biochemistry,) and fairly basic pharmacological terms (i.e. EC50s,) and pharmacokinetics. There's three lectures on autonomic nervous system pharmacology (basically just physiology,) which is very well taught. The subject then moves onto a series of five or so lectures which wouldn't be out of place in a law subject - lectures on drug regulation, drug discovery and a history of pharmacology. There's a good deal of diversity in the subject, it's not all science, and in the earlier weeks they teach you a lot about the non-scientiffic aspects of pharmacology. I've heard from friends that this is developed a lot more in third year.

After the first few weeks, the subject moves into something more typical of a 'science' subject - each lecture (or two) is devoted to therapeutic strategies to treat certain diseases. For example, there are lectures on:

• Drugs to treat hypertension/cardiovascular disease
• Drugs to treat asthma
• Drugs involving the immune system
• Contraceptives
• Drugs for depression
• Drugs for pain
• Drugs for obesity
• Drugs of dependence and addiction
• Drugs in sport

Of these topics, for me the lectures on cardiovascular pharmacology and analgesics were a (surprising) highlight.

Yes, you do have to memorise a lot of drugs - it's really not as bad as it sounds at the start of the subject. Some drugs you just need to know that it acts on a specific receptor (e.g. propanolol acts as an antagonist on the β adrenoceptors,) some you have to know more detail, side effects, etc (e.g. propanaolol can cause nightmares, tiredness.) I strongly recommend investing in a flash card program for your smartphone/laptop, makes studying a lot easier.

The final two weeks deal with toxicology. There's a couple of lectures on basic toxicology, then a lecture on toxins and the final lectures deal with drugs used to treat bacterial infections, viral infections and cancer.

Generally, lectures are fairly good - although there is some variability in quality with 15 lectures. Most lectures that take multiple lectures are quite good. Like others have said, I'd strongly recommend attending the tutorials, they only give answers to short answers in the tutorials, and they give a good deal of information about the exam and what they expect.

There's two pracs. They're really easy and kind of boring. In the first prac, you generate antagonist/agonist response curves (i.e. add differing concentrations of a drug and look at the tissue response,) in the second prac you use a few drugs to try and figure out the receptors present in a tissue. The pracs are assessed using a prac report form (for the first prac,) and an online quiz (for the second prac.) They're pretty straightforward.

There's also some short assignments ('self-directed' learning tasks.) These are apparently fair game on the exam and MST, although there's usually only one or two MCQs. They shouldn't take too long to do (only a couple of hours,) and are pretty easy marks. Like any science assignment you do, just make sure you're sufficiently anal with units, captions etc. The assignments are introduced in a 'special topic,' which is again, accessible. They pretty much tell you what to do, so it's an easy place to pick up marks before the exam. It'll make your SWOTVAC just that much less stressful.

There's also a 20% 40 minute MST. It's pretty straightforward, and it's a similar style and difficulty to the final exam. Keep in mind that most of the more difficult content in pharmacology comes in the second half of the semester. It's worth 20%, so yeah, study for it. The SDLs and pracs are supposedly accessible, but there's only usually one MCQ. Unlike the reviewer below me, I felt that the MST covered the content across the first half of semester fairly and equally (just that we had only had two therapeutics lectures by that point.) The MST wasn't too demanding - about 30% of the class got a H1 (but about 40% either passed or failed as well.)

This will be the first exposure most people have to pharmacology (it was mine.) It actually involves very little chemistry - the subject is about the effects of drugs, not the organic chemistry of making drugs (so it's not Breaking Bad.) It involves a fair bit of physiology and anatomy, a little bit of biochemistry (mainly drug/receptor interactions.) Most of the physiology is taught at a simple level. There's a bit of chemistry, but it rarely goes beyond high school level (literally just acids and bases.) In terms of difficulty and workload, it's easier then the other second year subjects I did (biochemistry and chemistry.) It's supposedly less hardcore then anatomy and physiology. Only a two hour exam, although unlike most other subjects, there's a substantial MST (20%.)

On the whole, pharmacology is a interesting, fairly well-run subject. You learn a lot of interesting stuff and it's directly relevant (I've had my parents start to quiz me about the drugs they're taking!) The only downsides are the kind of useless pracs (either have six pracs, or none at all,) and the fact that some topics can be touched on superficially (although it does allow a good breadth in topics to be covered.) If you've got a free spot in your study plan in second or third year, I strongly recommend taking it.

Edit:

Exam was very fair - everything that was assessed was in the lectures/pracs/workshops. As expected, the questions overwhelmingly came from the lectures - only a few multiple choice from the workshops and the pracs (so definitely still worth revising.) They generally didn't test minutiae, and although you had to remember drug names, simply recalling drug names wasn't a major focus of the exam. Many multiple choice gave drug classes 'e.g. an ACE inhibitor,' not drug names 'e.g. captopril' as answers. On the whole, if you'd studied, the exam wasn't too challenging.

The more social sciencey aspects of the course weren't really emphasised in the exam. Do revise them, but focus on the science.

50 of the 110 marks were for 'mixed response' questions, which are more like VCE biology exam questions then longer essay-like questions seen in other biology subjects. You chose five out of six to do.

Too many to list - see other reviews.

Most lectures only take one or two lectures.

Several available from the library website and the LMS.

4/5

A couple of recommended textbooks are given, like most biology subjects, they're only really useful as references.

2014 Semester 2

Continuing assessment of practical and computer-aided learning work during the semester (20%) - 10% pracs, 10% Self-directed learning tasks (SDLs)
Mid-semester assessment (20%) - MST test of 30 MCQ, 10 SAQ
A 2-hour written examination in the examination period (60%) - 60 MCQ + 6 SAQ where you pick 5 (I think)

Like others have echoed, this subject has probably been one of the most well taught and interesting subjects I have taken to date. The cohesion between the content is rather amazing and so interwoven. I'm still ~3-4 weeks behind in lectures and when I mean behind I mean actually committing the content to memory rather than just a simple glance of the lecture slides. As of now, my favorite lectures were on the autonomic nervous system (Graham), Tony's lectures on pharmacokinetics, drugs for the cardiovascular system (Christine), Jane's lecture on drugs in sport and also the immunopharmacology lecture (Alistair). Kind of sad that Jane moved to Monash as I heard she used to lecture a larger portion for pharm - she was really funny and I felt she explained the concepts really well. I didn't really enjoy the toxins lecture - the stuff to me was mindnumbingly boring and the slides were just utter crap.
You are expected to memorise many of the drugs - sometimes it is just the name but sometimes you need to memorise the mechanism of action and side effects etc.

Tutes I would say are important to attend as they don't release answers for the SAQ - pretty bad for me because I didn't go to any

You have 2 practicals for the semester (6% and 4% respectively)- 1st prac the assessment is based off a worksheet you hand up. I initially scored pretty bad for this but luckily I recognised that they made an error (missed a graph) in marking which lifted my mark 2nd prac assessment is based off an online quiz - make sure you take notes here because you will not be able to answer the online quiz without them.. I'm not really a practical kind of guy so I was initially really crapping myself about this section of the subject but in reality it isn't as bad as chem or bio pracs omg... Nevertheless, I wouldn't say I particularly enjoyed the practicals either which is making me question whether a pharmacology major for me is something I should pursue.

The 3 SDLs (4%, 4%, 2% distribution respectively) are rather tedious but free marks. Beware they take marks off for pretty minute things and for not being specific enough. You should probably aim to get at least 80% of the 10% (>8/10) here.

The MST is 20% so study hard for it. From my recollection there weren't many trick questions but make sure that you literally know everything as they can test you on anything. I walked out with people around me claiming how "easy" the MST was - average was 28/40 -> 70%.

As for the exam - I can't really comment at the moment but will probably edit later. The exam will be virtually identical in format/structure as the MST so get familiar with it - it's a pretty standard structure/format anyway.

Overall, I thought this subject was great and if there was no pharmacology practical core subject I would've 100% decided on my major already Unfortunately, that is not the case.

Yes, with screen capture etc.

N.B: stolen from Nubs
• Jane Bourke
• Graham Mackay
• David Newgreen
• Tony Hughes
• Christine Wright
• Alastair Stewart
• Peter Crack
• Catherine Laska
• Michelle Hansen
• James Ziogas
• John Fitzgerald
• Ken Winkel
• Michael Lew

Yes, quite a few I think.

4.5 Out of 5

Don't need one but if you're super keen then can't go wrong with Rang & Dale

3 X 1hr lecture, 5 X 1hr "special" topic lectures across the semester, 4 X 1 hr tutorials

2014 sem 2

(Optional) Not out yet

•Three Self Directed Learning tasks (SDLs), worth 10% in total
•One Practical report and one online quiz based on what you learnt in the second prac, also worth 10% in total
•Mid-semester assessment (20%).
•A 2-hour written examination in the examination period (60%).

This is probably one of the best, if not the best, subjects I’ve done so far. It’s one of those subjects that require a fair bit of rote learning - though much less than anatomy or pathology – and a fair bit of application – about the same level as physiology – as well as problem solving. I’ll speak about some of the topics we would cover and then talk a little bit about the SDLs and practicals.

For the first week or so you get an introduction on how drugs basically work. Where they bind, what effects they can have when they do bind, the ways in which they can bind, how to measure their efficiency etc etc. So basically just a general overview.

Once they’ve set the foundations down, the rest of the course is basically looking at different systems in the body and different classes of drugs and how they work. For example, we would have one lecture covering each of the following ‘classes’ of drugs:

•Contraceptives
•Antidepressants
•Performance enhancing drugs
•Drugs of dependence – Illicit drugs and alcohol
•Drugs that treat pain
•Drugs to treat obesity
•Drugs that increase academic performance

Other lectures would focus on drugs that are used to treat certain conditions or drugs that work on certain ‘systems’, so we would have lectures covering:

•Drugs that treat asthma
•Drugs affecting the nervous system
•Drugs affecting the cardiovascular system
•Drugs affecting the immune system

We would also look at toxicity of drugs and how we can harness that toxicity to treat diseases, as well as how drugs are regulated and controlled and what’s done differently now in regards to designing drugs.

For most of the lectures, there will be a bit of anatomy and physiology involved. You’ll need to learn the underlying ‘normal’ pathway and mechanisms, and then using that knowledge, figure out which steps in that pathway can be blocked or activated in order to induce the desired effect, and know which drug can be used to block or activate that step.

^That’s basically most of the subject. There will be a lot of pathways you’ll need to wrap your head around and you’ll need to memorise the names of a lot of drugs that can effect different parts of those pathways. You’ll basically have to ‘play doctor’. You might be given questions like, 'a patient has high blood pressure, could prescribing Losartan be a possible form of treatment? If yes, explain how Losartan could lower blood pressure. If no, name a drug that could be used to lower blood pressure and explain its mechanism of action.'

It might not sound like it due to the high number of lecturers, but the whole course is put together really, really well and I honestly couldn’t find a fault with any of the lecturers apart from the guy who taught venoms, his lecture slides were useless. By the end of the semester all the content just came together really well and my mates and I all thought this subject was the most applicable to the ‘real world’ out of all the subjects we’d done so far. Every time we heard one of our non-pharma friends talk about a blocked nose or whatever we would just instantly think of ways to treat them.

Yes, with screen capture

•Jane Bourke
•Graham Mackay
•D. Newgreen
•T. Hughes
•C. Wright
•Alastair Stewart
•P. Crack
•C. Laska
•M. Hansen
•J. Ziogas
•J. Fitzgerald
•K. Winkel
•M. Lew

Yes.

4.8/5

You don’t really need a textbook

3 lectures a week, 2x3 hour practicals throughout semester, (3-4)x1 hour tutes, 3x1 hour workshops

Semester 2, 2013

93

A couple of CALs and prac questions(don't worry it's not a prac report, it is just just answering a few questions (20%).
Mid-semester assessment (20%).
A 2-hour written examination in the examination period (60%).

I really enjoyed this subject. The quality of the lecturers were fantastic(except alastair stewart), even if some were a little boring. Oh, and before I start, yes you do need to learn all the drugs they mention *gasp* I know right! How could they make you do such a thing in a subject on Drugs. Overall there are about 100 to learn. For some drugs you just need to learn that it binds to this receptor, others you need to learn how the drug causes the response. In terms of side effects for drugs, some lecturers will teach them but not assess them, others will teach them and assess them. Just learn the main side effects rather than all of them and you'll be okay, if they do get assessed it'll just be MCQ questions.
So, content, here we go.
First 3-4 weeks is the principles of drugs, and this is the how drugs work, how they are excreted out of the body and how drugs are discovered. Pretty boring stuff IMO.
After that is where I really started to enjoy it. You basically learn the drugs used to treat various things and how they do whatever they are supposed to do. The topics are drugs for: asthma, hypertension, immune system, pain, depression, obesity, contraception, recreation, sport, bacteria, fungi, brain and then a couple of random ones on drug toxicity and environmental contaminants.
Tutes are optional and basically like mini interactive lectures. The workshop they will say is assessable but in reality it'll be 1 multi choice question on one of the drugs. The pracs are compulsory but there are only 2 of them. The first prac is incredibly boring but the second is okay. Assessment for the pracs is post practical assessment.
Overally the assessment I found was much easier in comparison to my biomed subjects especially the MST. The exam was more difficult than the MST otherwise 30% probably would of gotten H1s. The exam I thought was still very fair.
Also in terms of studying, I recommend using one of the many flashcard websites out there and make your set of flashcards. It makes learning much more efficient.
As I said the lecturers are great even though there are many. Because each lecture is basically another topic you don't feel the need for continuity of lectures, so it's not a problem that there are many different lecturers. Overall great subject, made me consider doing a pharmacology major.
PM me for any questions

Yes, with screen capture

Lots and lots and lots.

Yes.

4.5/5

I have no idea if there is a textbook, but you definitely do not need it.

3 lectures a week, 2x3 hour pracs throughout semester, (3-4)x1 hour tutes, 3x1 hour workshops

2013 - Sem 2

92