Pharmacotherapeutics of positive inotropes.

Pharmacology is integrated in all areas of nursing practice. From the most basic entry level to the most advanced clinical practice, nursing curriculums are not complete without pharmacology. The word "pharmacology" often makes nurses and other health care professionals feel uneasy. Pharmacology implies complicated words and formulas that seem foreign, recalled only from one's most distant recollections of college years. For many health care providers, courses in pharmacology are taken before they care for patients, leaving them with little practical experience from which to relate. Education involves not simply learning and doing, but also applying knowledge. A basic understanding of pharmacology is needed to break down the barriers of pharmacologic communication and put the clinician at ease with terminology so often used by the medical community.