Think Pharmacy!

 “Think out of the box and create a learning experience where the learner can interact with the content and their brains.” – Rosalie Ledda Valdez

 The UIC Bachelor of Science in Pharmacy Major in Clinical Pharmacy has designed a program that provides a continuum of required and elective experiences from introductory to advance to support the achievement of Global Outcome Competencies. The Advanced Pharmacy Practice Experience Program augments the student’s pharmacy education by providing real-life experience in many aspects of contemporary pharmacy practice. Moreover, it emphasizes problem-solving, clinical skills, and critical thinking by allowing students to advance the knowledge, skills, attitudes, and values developed throughout the curriculum. Additional experience is gained through completion of objectives encompassing case presentations, drug information, patient care plans and patient assessment.Furthermore, one of the major skills clinical pharmacy interns should have is his/her ability to appraise drug literatures and journals.This is about their knowledge and skills on elearning.Likewise, the school offers elms and proquest to highly practiced elearning among students.Through, these programs, students can have access to their previous assignments and reports when they took up 60 units of their academic lectures.Besides, proquest equipped them with updated journals which are essential in explaining to the healthcare practitioners the pharmacotherapy of medicines.Truly, elearning is a gift from God and an amazing weapon if pharmacists.

SHARING IS CARING

“One of the most important areas we can develop as professionals is competence in accessing and sharing knowledge.” – Connie Malamed

In this age of demand for optimum quality of care and shortened length of patient stay in the hospital, the opportunities for clinical pharmacy interventions are enormous. Pharmacists, with their unique background in clinical therapeutics, can make a significant difference in patient outcome.

Initially there may be some skepticism among some of the physicians about the intent of pharmacy interventions. Hence, pharmacists’ continual striving for improvement of quality of care can persuade skeptical physicians to consider pharmacists as their allies in achieving optimum quality of care.

In this age of demand, sharing would be possible through the creation and implementation of a Drug Information Center all hospitals.To add, drug information center is sub-branch of pharmacy services in the hospitals.This area is a source of all information about a drug as well as its incompatibilities and drug interactions.In addtion, this  branch will offer effective services through the use of internet and the knowledge of the pharmacists in elearning.Most ofthe practices of pharmacists involves literature review and journal appraisal in the net.It has been noted also that clinical pharmacists in particular, share extra time answering queries anytime and anywhere through the well-known facebook account.Thus, it is a calling and pride of a pharmacist to share their knowledge and skills with the aid of elearning.

CLINICAL PHARMACY VIGILANCE

“We need to bring learning to people instead of people to learning.” – Elliot Masie

Progress in medication safety is indispensable in this day and age. Determining the perils of prescription drugs after they have been sold to the medical community and public is frequent. Commonly, 51% of FDA-approved drugs have serious adverse effects not detected prior to approval. Each year prescription drugs injure 1.5 million people so severely they require hospitalization. In addition, prescription drugs cause 100,000 deaths annually worldwide (World Health, 2003). One of these could be fatal drug interaction events. In some cases, prescribers use known interactions to enhance efficacy in the treatment of several important conditions such as hypertension or cancer. However in many other cases, patients are exposed to unnecessary risk by the concomitant prescription of agents that have been shown to interact adversely. It is this fact, that many interactions are predictable, that means that avoidance is possible, if the prescriber is aware of the clinical pharmacology of the medicines involved. Antagonism of the effects of one medicine by another may result in patients being denied the beneficial effects of therapy.(Thomas and Routledge, 2003).

As a response to the growing concern to ensure medication safety and monitoring for patients, this necessitated that initiatives be made here in the Philippines, Dr. Siopin Co, the director of Pharmacy Department, at the Makati Medical Center spearheaded the clinical pharmacy services with the assistance of Mrs. Myrna Canda, the supervisor of the said hospital. One of the services of this practice is determining drug interactions. Accordingly, clinical pharmacists accompany the doctors during their medical rounds, providing drug selection consultations. They also collaborate with other health care team members regarding the medication therapy through discussions and forums (Padayhag, 2007).

This advancement in Clinical Pharmacy pave way for the establishment of elearning activities such as online postgraduate pharmacy programs, “tele-conferencing fora and a lot of of online specialty pharmacy courses that can be completed within six months or more.Truly, elearning is a gift from God in which the Pharmacy Universities from the First world country can impart their knowledge to the developing and underdeveloped countries.They have faithfully stretched out their arms using this technology.Amazing!

PHARMACISTS CARE AT ITS BEST

“Students do not learn much just sitting in classes listening to teachers, memorizing prepackaged assignments, and spitting out answers. They must talk about what they are learning, write reflectively about it, relate it to past experiences, and apply it to their daily lives. They must make what they learn part of themselves.” – Arthur W. Chickering and Stephen C. Ehrmann

Last August 5, 2014, the Clinical Pharmacy faculty invited a prestigious lecturer to discuss medication history-taking and correct ways to communicate with a client in the pharmacy setting. Prof. May Florence Bacayo, an alumnus of the university, came all the way from Segi, Malaysia to give talks on the previously-mentioned topics. She gave a discourse on the subject to the UIC Clinical Pharmacy students on the first day then did the same on the second day, but then at San Pedro College.

After teaching, she then asked several volunteers to enact a pharmacist-client interaction with specific situations. She patterned the said exercise after the OSCE which was being enforced by the institution where she is currently a member of the faculty of. The OSCE there had 12 stations with about 5 minutes allotted for performing required set of skills in said station. Students were allowed 3-5 minutes preparation in some stations, as appropriate. After the activities, a certificate of recognition was presented to her by the Dean of Pharmacy, Dr. Eva San Juan and the Clinical Pharmacy program coordinator, Cherrie Gasendo-Muaña.

Here in the Philippines, this OSCE exam was first introduced by the University of the Philippines.This oral and written exam can be practiced using elearning.The OSCE coordinator can use videos instead of role playing.Each station will be provided with a laptop.If the student is ready to take the exam then he will click the play icon.All videos will last up to three minutes.Furthermore, this practice will give the students wide range of overview about different patient cases.Lastly,this examination is a challenging assessment and a great help as we are looking forward for ASEAN 2015.

UIC CLINICAL PHARMACY ALUMNI TWOSOME CONQUEST IN USA FPGEE AND NAPLEX 2014

“The key to success is to appreciate how people learn, understand the thought process that goes into instructional design, what works well, and a range of different ways of achieving goals.” – Tim Buff

The B.S. Pharmacy Major in Clinical Pharmacy program as it grasps 10th year offering this 2014, realizes twosome conquest in the USA FPGEE and NAPLEX.

The UIC curriculum in B.S. Pharmacy major in Clinical Pharmacy was enlisted and opens in 2004. There were only ten graduates for that school year. As years pass, the curriculum was reviewed, re-crafted, and polished.

This year, 2014, more than twenty of its graduates have successfully passed the North American Pharmacy Licensure Examination (NAPLEX) in the USA and another ten (10) graduates hurdled the Foreign Pharmacy Graduate Equivalency Examination (FPGEE).

Likewise, UIC is the only school in Mindanao whose curriculum in B.S. Pharmacy major in Clinical Pharmacy being at par with USA curriculum.
This breakthrough is often striking and reexamined for it has given UIC Pharmacy graduates a brighter future.

FPGEE Passers are :
Burlas, Katreena
Liwag , John Oliver
Cruz, Sherryl
Mejia, Ma. Isabelita
Nerosa, Raisa
Requenco, Joseph
Ridao, Marissa
Ronquillo, Beverly faye
So, Shiela
Yuhon, Lauren

NAPLEX PASSERS:
Argana, Michelle
Salgado, Nicola Felise
Villegas, Marie Anne Co
Derecho, Leonora
Timbal, Lawrence
Manulat, Marichu
Lumogdang, Florabelle
Yap, Cely
Rolando, Stephanie
Baes, Rose

When this fifth year course was established,everything was experimental.What strengthens the curriculum and instruction is the innovativeness of the instructors.The first faculty of the program were all doctors who travel at least twice a month.To suffice the missing days, the students were given modules and the answers were submitted online.Supplemental videos and journals from the internet were also given to them.Thus, as years passes by,the program have become stronger and more clingy to the advancement of the teachnology, the elearning.