A nursing student walks through building med cards from scratch using the Davis Drug Guide and templates in Word, Canva, or Etsy. Every card needs generic name, drug class, mechanism of action, indications, side effects, contraindications, and patient education. Learn generic names before trade names and use the same template for both individual drugs and entire drug classes.
In this video, I'm gonna walk you through how to make med cards in nursing school. I get so many questions about this from nursing students asking what to include, how to lay it all out and how to find all the information to put on it. So I am gonna answer all of that and more here in this video. So hit that subscribe button and click the notification bell and let's dive in. Now, the first thing you'll need when you go to make your med cards is a drug guide. Now this one favorite, it's called the Davis Drug Guide and I love how it's laid out. It has the medication classes here in the front. And if you remember from this video, you'll know why you should study those drug classes instead of individual medications. So hot tip for you there, be sure to watch that video if you haven't already. The other cool thing about this is that all of the individual medications are here in the rest of the book. They have all the information that you need to fill out your med card. It's all super organized, so you'll definitely want to get this drug guide if you haven't already. It's just super easy to use. I get questions a lot about how I tab mine. So I just found these little flag post it notes and I wrote the medication names on them. So I only did it for the medications that I gave all the time at clinical so that I didn't have to keep flipping through the book to try to find what I needed. I could just find the tab, open the tab up right there and the medication was right there. So that's a handy tip if you want to do that for yourself. Now the next thing you'll want to do is make a template for your med card. Use a Word document, find one on Etsy, or use a simple graphic design software like Canva. You really want to have a template saved so that you don't need to create a new one every time or remember what to include. You won't forget anything because it's all there for you in the template. You just need to fill it in. Now Canva is actually what I use to make the med cards for our nursing SOS members. So if you are a Nursing SOS member, log in to your dashboard and click on the how to Study Pharmacology course. In there you will find this printable med card template for you to use as you make them. Now the next step is to actually write it all out and make sure you added the right sections to your med card. And here are the main categories that you absolutely must include. You've got to have the generic name of the drug, the pharmacologic class, mechanism of action, the indications meaning what it's used for, common and life threatening side effects, the contraindications or patients you would not want to give the drug to, what you would want to assess for, and then the patient education on what education needs to occur. Now those are the main categories you need to include. Now some other categories that are nice to have and are necessary for some medications are things like directions on how to give the medication. Like if you're giving a blood product, what are the steps you need to take in order to administer it safely? Now if you're a nursing SOS member, make sure to check out the video we have for you on how to administer blood products. If you're giving insulin, you need to know the onset, peak and duration of the type of insulin. I actually have a free cheat sheet for you that walks you through those, so make sure that you download that. I will put the link to that cheat sheet in the description below this video for you and you can also include the antidote if there's a common antidote that you need to know about. So so those are the nice to have categories but not necessary for all medications. Except like I said, if you're giving insulin, you absolutely need to know the onset, peak and duration. And for things like blood products, you definitely need to know the procedure for giving it. Now I have some bonus tips for you to help you save time studying pharmacology. But before we dive into those, I do want to give a shout out to BeautifullyODwiley for our YouTube comment of the Week which says New Nursing student here. I am so excited and I have been watching your videos for the past month. I start my classes this upcoming Monday and this video was what I needed to hear. Thanks a bunch friend. Xoxo oh my goodness. Yay. I am so glad that our videos have helped you out and good luck my friend on nursing school. You are absolutely going to rock it. Thank you friends from the bottom of my heart for all of your nice comments. I feel so, so blessed that I get to be here with you every week and that you've allowed me to come alongside you on your nursing school journey. Now I want you to know that I do not take that responsibility lightly. I love showing up for you every week and helping you out to the best of my ability. I feel so blessed that you show up for me as well with all your comments. So thank you so so much. Now here are the bonus tips for how to make studying pharmacology and making med cards way easier. Tip number one Always include the drug class and mechanism of action. Now if you want to know how to save a ton of time studying pharmacology and learning meds, check this video out. I will yell it from the rooftops if I have to. You need to learn the mechanism of action of the drug class first. This one little tip will save you hours of study time. So if you want to deep dive into that step by step process, check that video out. Now tip number two was to learn the generic name of the drug first and then the trade name second, if at all. Now the trade name is basically the brand, whereas the generic name is what it actually is. Now the NCLEX and your nursing school exams will always include the generic name, but they won't always list the trade name. So it's really important that you know what the generic name is because that's the one that will be listed on your exams. It won't help you if you only know the trade names of the drugs because sometimes they they won't be listed on your test. So make sure that you learn the generic name. Now tip number three is to use the same med card template to write info on the drug class and individual drugs. Now make sure to watch this video where I explain the step by step process for how to study pharmacology and which med card to create first. You definitely want to do this process with both the drug class too and I walk you through why that is so important in that video. Now in the next video we are going to talk about how to meal prep in nursing school. I know a lot of you have been waiting for this video since I posted about it on Instagram. So I am super stoked to give it to you and make sure you're subscribed and that you've clicked the notification bell or you might not get notified when that video comes out. You will not want to miss it. And of course make sure to like comment and share this video with a friend and click on one of these videos here so that you can keep rocking nursing school and as always go become the nurse that God created only you to be. And I will see you in the next video, my friend. Take care. Bye.
