1. When I study over-the-counter drugs, it is not advisable to choose a cough product that contains both guaifenesin and dextromethorphan. Since the former is an expectorant, which helps loosen sputum and stimulate coughs, making it easier to cough up, and the latter is a cough suppressant, the effects offset each other, rendering the drug almost useless. Surprisingly enough, there are scores of such products within your reach at any pharmacy. Needless to say, when I need to buy a cough medicine for me or my family, such drugs immediately get crossed out of my list.

2. When my husband sprained his ankle, he tried to apply heat over it, hoping to ease the pain. It is not the right therapy, however. The truth is that within the first 24 hours heat would worsen the situation by increasing blood flow to the injured area and making it swell even more. It is therefore more appropriate to apply cold therapy to constrict the blood vessels, thus reducing edema.

3.  When one needs an eye drop, it is common for him to hold the bottle upside down over the eye and press its body to instill the drop. This is not a correct technique, since the number of drops instilled that way is uncontrollable. To do it correctly, one should hold the bottle by the neck upside down over the eye and use his index finger to press down the top, which technique will allow the drops to be released one at a time.

If the above three commonly made mistakes are not enough to convince you of the virtue of a good knowledge of medicine, please make sure you check back each month. More will certainly be added during the next four years.

1. First-year students carry a course load of about 20 credit hours per term, comprising six different courses and have a full-time job of sitting through classes from 8:00 A.M. to 4:00 P.M. almost every weekday with a short read-run-and-swallow lunch. The sitting job continues at home past midnight with a one-hour-long break for dinner when about 30 pages of handouts and additional textbook reading assignments are to be scoured.

2. Group work, presentations, individual projects, and lab reports are just appetites or entrees on your menu with a minimum daily dose of 6 email messages from profs to read to add more flavour to your dessert.

3. Some of the luxuries pharmacy students could dream of, just as teenagers dream of cruising the street in a convertible Porsche, include shopping, hair cuts, football games, and parties. They simply cannot afford the time!

2. It is normal that students, before dispensing their compounded prescription, are required to write patient instruction regarding what the patient should expect when taking the medication. In one of our lab classes, the instructor cutely changes our human patient to a puppy. Here's how one student writes to the caregiver: "Notify physician if the dog develops sore throat and cough. May cause dizziness, fainting, and light-headedness. Have the dog sit and stand up r-e-a-l  s-l-o-w-l-y."

• www. mayohealth.org
• www.emedicine.com
• www.discoveryhealth.com
• www.webmd.com
• www.medinfo.co.uk
• www.ashp.org
• www.pdr.net
• www.nih.gov