Recommend a good comprehensive Pharmacology text

In My Humble Opinion
1

This is something I want to get for my girlfriend. She tends to study her own conditions and the medical state-of-the-art in depth. She doesn’t need “this is a milligram” or “see, the doctor writes this thing called a prescription”. She has access to an online/current PDR and Merck and subscriptions to a dozen or so online journals such as NEJM and JAMA.

She could use “these are the most common commercially-used binders for this and that class of pharmaceutical, and why”, and “here is a good guide to shelf life for the 5000 most commonly prescribed pharmaceuticals”.

Also things like conventional practice and ethics in the field, regulatory authorities and codes governing pharmacies and pharmacists, reciprocity between states and nations and whatnot.

Thanks in advance!

2

Here’s a few I used in pharmacy school.

Goodman & Gillman

Remington

Guyton

If there’s a pharmacy or medical school near you, you might want to check the used bookstores in your area for older editions of these, they’re quite expensive. HTH.

3

I got a good deal on the Goodman & Gilman coupled with the Remington so I went with that. Thanks again!

Ole Miss, huh? I briefly attended Ole Miss in '77 but I dropped out and didn’t go back to do the college thing until '85.

4

It’s probably too late, but at my bookstore we sell Pharmacotherapy by DiPiro for our Pharmacology classes.

It’s also $155.

5
  • This place sells overstock books of all types at deep discounts. Some of the books have hardly any discount at all, but it is not unusual to find (yearly-updated) tehnical reference books that originally cost $200 two years ago for $20.
    ,
  • This place is also unique in that they apparently do not have any street address: I first bought from them through mail order, and their entire address seems to be “Falls Village, CT 06031-5010”.
    ~
6

That’s very interesting because if you were there in '85 that was when I was flunking out on my first go-round at Ole Miss and wound up back in Oxford years later than that. It’s always nice to meet someone who did the extremely long college career thing like I did.

I’ll warn you and your GF about one thing with clinical textbooks - “med student syndrome”. We were all warned about - especially in the patho course - there are people who begin to experience the symptoms they’re studying about. Beware.

7

I recommend you one of my best friends during the university (and still now): Katzung’s Pharmacology

8

Yup, Katzung is the text they tell you to use.
But it’s big and scary. I use it only if I can’t find the information somewhere else.

I use an Oxford book of clinical pharm, it has a nice Pharmacopaeia at the back, and is divided into systems.

I think it’s always a good idea to get a formulary as well, MIMS, or the BNF are 2 popular ones here. Something that has the generic, trade and approved names of drugs, standard dosages, available preparations, side effects and contra-indications all laid out for you.

If she is thinking about a good textbook of general medicine, Kumar and Clarke is excellent.