Introduction: Pharmacological and Parenteral Therapies – NCLEX-RN®

00:01 The second category in physiological integrity is pharmacological and parenteral therapies. Now, this is worth 13 to 19%.

00:09 Yes, this is the category that brings fear into everyone, Pharm.

00:15 But I want you to know that it's far more than just drugs.

00:18 Let's take a look at the things that you can see.

00:21 Now the definition is providing care related to the administration of medication and parenteral therapies.

00:28 So look at some of the stuff that can be in here.

00:31 Administering blood products and evaluating the client response.

00:34 Remember, only in RN can do that initial hanging of the blood products and assess them. And here you might have to know how to access and maintain central venous access devices. Now, in most hospitals you might call that a central line, but in any language it is a central venous access device.

00:55 That's what you got there.

00:57 Here could be the dosage calc that nobody in this call really likes.

01:02 But if you take your time, do your math, use your write on wipe off board.

01:07 I promise you'll be able to get the dosage calculation that's available.

01:11 Now, in pharm, it would make sense that you need to be able to recognize how the patient is responding to the medication.

01:17 Is it safe? Is it effective? Those are the things that you're looking for.

01:21 They also may ask you to educate the client about the medications that could appear in a question that says which of the patient's statements indicate the need for further teaching. That would mean that you're looking for the statement that's wrong or unsafe about the medication that you're talking about.

01:39 Absolutely. You have to know the rights of medication administration.

01:43 You don't ever want to give medication to a patient without checking more than one form of their identification.

01:50 So make sure if you're giving a blood pressure medication, you check their blood pressure before you give it.

01:55 If you're giving a medication that's hard on the kidneys, you check their lab results.

01:59 So it's whatever you have to do to do safe administration and evaluation of medications.

02:06 One question I get asked at almost every NCLEX review is what exactly are the drugs that are going to be on the pharm section? The answer is no one knows, right? I know that we've developed a course for you where we've given our best guess based on the highest risk to patient safety.

02:25 There is no list from NCSBN that says we are only limited to these medications.

02:31 I can tell you it will be only generic names.

02:34 You won't see the trade names on the exam.

02:37 So that wraps up the pharm section.

02:39 But I have one more key strategy I want to leave with you.

02:43 Don't panic about the number of drugs that you see on the exam.

02:47 And please don't panic if you don't recognize the name of a medication.

02:53 It happens more often than we're comfortable with.

02:56 However, you just tell yourself it is one question.

03:00 Do your best.

03:01 See if you can get clues from the stem.

03:03 And they just have to pick your answer and go on.

03:07 So good luck in this section.

03:09 Keep in mind, drug names can pop up in any of the categories, not just the pharm category. So again, don't panic.

03:16 If you see drug names in multiple questions, it doesn't mean you're not doing well in pharm questions. It just means your test happen to have a lot of drug names.

03:26 So good luck with our practice questions and I'll see you in the next category.