In this tutorial I go through the Pharmacology December 2017 past paper from the Hong Kong Pharmacy Registration Exam.

Please note I do not have any affiliations with the Pharmacy and Poisons Board nor did I write the original questions.

I have tried to strike a balance between keeping the answers to the point and providing more comprehensive information. Some of the topics are actually interesting pharmacologically and in these cases I might digress and expand on them some more, and I hope you find these expansions informative. You may consider shortening the answers I have provided for exam purposes.

For some questions it may be possible for there to be more than one answer which will be acceptable to the examiner. Or in some cases where answers can be listed out, not necessarily every item listed is required to be written out to get full marks.

Side effects: I cross-reference between the BNF and the electronic Medicines Compendium or other suitable references and will only put down common specific side effects relevant to the question and the mechanism of action of the drug.

I have provided references used which are also good for further reading.

I tend to prefer British nomenclature and brand names, but also include international/US names and examples.

Bear in mind I have had unlimited time and access to literature resources to help me answer the questions. The exam questions are difficult, and under exam settings it is unlikely that any candidate would have been able to answer all the questions fully.

I am experimenting with videos with this tutorial which are more discussion style and are meant to compliment the written text, do let me know if you like them or not.

If you would like to comment or challenge any of the answers I have provided please contact me via Facebook on the Hong Kong Registration Exam group. Feedback is always appreciated!

I would also like to thank Joe Blais for proofreading.

Thank you for reading and happy studying

Sharon