Drugs For Me

We've reached the pharmacology segment of our education.

They say we will know 100-200 drugs by June. 500 drugs by the ends of second year. And over 1000 by the time we graduate. Right now I know... 12 (and three of those are aspirin, ibuprofen, and acetaminophen - I know, I'm so smart).

There's a lot of hate directed at the pharmaceutical companies in this nation these days, with their high prices and shady marketing tactics. I've started to hate the pharmaceuticals too, but for an entirely different reason: they have to come up with their own damn propriety name for every drug they make.

Say you're riding on the light rail and overhear a guy talking about how he had a bad experience with his sildenafil and had to go to the emergency room cause of... complications and the misses was hysterically crying the entire time in the waiting room. You would probably shrug off his comments, feel a little bad, go back to reading your New Yorker (you trendy ass), and queue up the next indie track on your iPod.

Now what if I say you're riding on the light rail and overhear a guy talking about how he had a bad experience with his Viagra™ and had to go to the emergency room cause of... complications and the misses was hysterically crying the entire time in the waiting room. Well then you'd probably laugh, dial up your college buddy on your phone, tell him the story then when he picks up then blast The Starland Vocal Band's "Afternoon Delight" from your iPod headphones loud enough the dude might hear it.

And its all Pfizer's fault that you might have missed a perfectly good joke in scenario #1 because they marketed their pill as "Viagra" (what the hell is that supposed to mean anyways?) instead of it's drug name: sildenafil.

Ibuprofen? or Advil?
Carvedilol? or Coreg?
Simvastatin? or Zocor?

Hell, the brand names don't even make sense. Celebrex? Sounds like a weird sex fetish, not a COX II inhibitor. Zoloft? Sounds like a planet in a galaxy somewhere, not a SSRI. Lipitor? Sounds like a name of an evil alien warlord out of Scientology (zing!)

But mainly I'm just pissed because it doubles the number of drug names I have to memorize.

Of course, it'll be worth it. We're finally reaching the part of our education where our lectures are for the most part directly related to the clinical aspect of medicine. Which is cool. Cause I kinda got into this doctor thing for the whole "helping patients" part and not the whole "memorizing 500 different enzymes" part. And its always fun when you start a new subject in medical school. It brings back a little bit of that "WOW! COOL! MED SCHOOL!" in me that was running out of my nose back in August.

So, for now...

WOW! COOL! DRUGS!

P.S. A big props to the people who have left comments recently. I love comments. They remind me people actually read this thing and I am not talking to myself all alone out in cyberspace. Way to go readers!

P.P.S. Just learned today that the propriety name for Benzocaine is HURRICANE®! Now that's what I'm talking about UltraMed! A name which inspires fear and confidence in your product!