Well designed and validated patient education is a vital component of comprehensive cardiac rehabilitation programming and has a strong influence on successful recovery following cardiac events, improvement in health behaviors, and future morbidity and mortality. One of the areas of high importance is the provision of information about drug therapies. All patients participating in cardiac rehabilitation are taking several medications. However, many have unresolved questions regarding efficacy, safety, mechanism and rationale for these therapies, and this may contribute to the well-documented nonadherence to medications in this population. The landscape is being made even more complex given significant advances in the pharmacologic approaches to CAD prevention, based on major recent trials of newer antiplatelet and anti-thrombotic approaches as well as intensification of lipid, blood pressure, and specific diabetes treatments. This session will provide cardiac rehab practitioners with insights into key clinical trial advances while at the same time providing approaches to having successful conversations with patients to convey medication concepts in a comprehensible format.