Studying Pharmacy in the UK: What Books Would You Recommend?

[Safiya]

Hi,

I'm a first year Pharmacy student from the UK. Do we have any newly graduated Pharmacy students here? If so, what books would you recommend buying?

Thanks in advance!

[laurabuk]

Hey,

I'm a final year student. It all depends on your course, I had a suggested reading list in first year, but it might be different in your school.

I would recommend:

Winfield and Richard - Pharmaceutical Practice. It's probably one of the better pharmacy practice books (but you may be biased towards the Belcher and Langley one if you're at Aston)

Patrick - Medicinal Chemistry

Aulton - Pharmaceutics

A medical dictionary

A pharmaceutical calculations book of your choice (choose one that suits you)

These are probably the best books for first year, I used them all except Patrick which I used last year but would have benefitted from earlier if I'd known about it.

If you want any more specific advice it's probably best speaking to a student in the higher levels at your School.

Laura

[Nik]

Books worthwhile buying for degree :

BNF (if they don't give you one for free which they really should)
Clinical Pharmacy and Therapeutics (more useful for the later years + pre-reg)
Medical dictionary as mentioned by Laura always comes in handy.
Pharmacy law is always changing so not worth buying a book here although the ethics books by winfield is actually quite good.

Books not worth buying because they can be found in the library:

Medicinal chemistry
Cell and molecular biology
Pharmaceutics

[Asterix]

Clinical pharmacy and therapeutics would be a good purchase along with me a mep (medicines and ethics practice guide).

[laurabuk]

We get our MEPs for free

I didn't mention CP&T as we only got told to buy that for 3rd year, but possibly good for lower years.

I forgot Pharmacology by Rang,Dale,Ritter and Moore/Flower. It's about 40 quid though so I got it out of the library for pretty much the whole of second year!! Don't buy the condensed version, it's not worth the paper it's printed on! We got told to buy it and IMHO it was a waste of money.

[Asterix]

We get our MEPs for free

I didn't mention CP&T as we only got told to buy that for 3rd year, but possibly good for lower years.

I forgot Pharmacology by Rang,Dale,Ritter and Moore/Flower. It's about 40 quid though so I got it out of the library for pretty much the whole of second year!! Don't buy the condensed version, it's not worth the paper it's printed on! We got told to buy it and IMHO it was a waste of money.

Yeah MEP is usually free but some unis I'm sure don't provide it. Rang and dale is good but I wouldn't purchase it.

On another note, have you started applying to pre-reg laura?

[laurabuk]

I've got my place Asterix

[Nik]

Rang and dale is definitely worth a purchase early on. You don't have to pay 40 quid if you can get it cheaper at uni second hand booksales from final years .
Also a physiology book is not worth buying though because there are plenty of copies in libraries and you'll probably only need it for first year.

[Safiya]

Thanks guys! That was much appreciated. So I've got my BNF, free MEP and calculations book, and I've spoken to my lecturers about what else I need to buy. Could you perhaps recommend one from the list below for my module entitled Molecular Basis of Disease (we were told to buy one of them):

Alberts B. (2009) Essential Cell Biology. 3rd ed.
OR
Campbell, N. A. (2008) Biology. 8th ed.
OR
Lehninger, A. L., Nelson, D.L. and Cox, M. M. (2008) Lehninger Principles of Biochemistry. 4th ed.
OR
Phillips, J., Murray, P. and Kirk, P. (2001) The Biology of Disease. 2nd ed.

(Apparently most people either buy the Alberts or the Campbell one.)

[jimmy]

Buying books.................. use the library thats wot the library is there for........ im 3rd yr and i still aint even bought one book.