Everything you need to know about how to study for (and pass) the biggest exam standing between you and the title "Pharmacist."
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Hypertension has been called the “silent killer.” It’s basically asymptomatic unless your blood pressure is high enough to classify as a "hypertensive urgency/emergency." Only then do you really notice anything. You'll get headaches, dizziness, blurry vision, shortness of breath...that sort of thing.
Otherwise, a hypertensive patient feels normal. But behind the scenes, bad stuff is going down in the body.
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Editor's note: To date, our most reader requested topic has been HIV. We've written a guest post at MedEd101 to cover the most NAPLEX-worthy testing points. But we thought we'd dig in a little further here. Over the next few weeks, we're posting a series called HIV Boot Camp. We'll shore up your HIV fundamentals. Then we'll breakdown each drug class piece by piece to highlight what you need to know. For convenience, we'll link each part of the series here. Part I
Part II: Treatment Goals and Considerations
Alright. Last time we looked at the background and pathophysiology of HIV. We looked at a small glimpse of what a patient might experience in the early days of an HIV infection. As practitioners, we have to ask ourselves "Now what?" Is it time to just give the patient an Atripla and go on about our day?
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It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a doctor in possession of a cellulitis patient, must be in want of an antibiotic recommendation from pharmacy....
Once, a medical resident called me to ask about a patient on the floor I was covering. The patient was 23, and in good health. He showed up to the ED overnight because of a worsening red/swollen wound he received doing construction work a few days prior. He was afebrile.
The overnight team admitted him to the hospital and started on Vanc and Zosyn (I like to call it "ZoVan").
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Hello Everyone! Just a quick note to mention that we wrote a guest post over at the very awesome www.meded101.com
The post goes through some HIV wisdom for the NAPLEX....which is fast approaching if you're a P4. You can check it out here:
https://www.meded101.com/top-5-hiv-clinical-pearls-naplex/
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There's a dirty little secret about life in the first few months after graduation. Many, if not most, entered this profession with the promises of riches and fame (well, maybe not the fame). The initial offer from that major pharmacy chain has more significant figures than your algebra teacher ever required you to round to. And for nearly everyone it will be a tremendous jump in income. Especially considering you've been living on so many student loans that your net income has been negative for 4 years.
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If you are a future (or current) pharmacist, you need to know warfarin. You don't need me to tell you that. Every teacher and preceptor you've had since you started school has been drilling that into your head.
However you've probably also noticed that few will actually tell you how to dose warfarin. Sure, you learn about purple toes and birth defects, but that doesn't tell you what to do when your patient's INR is 5.6.
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Imagine it's your first week of an APPE rotation at an anticoagulation clinic. You're excited and a little nervous. You've been brushing up on your Lovenox. You've read all you can about Eliquis and Xarelto and Pradaxa (oh my!). You're ready to impress.
Then there's the elephant in the room that is warfarin. Sure, you know lots about it. You can rattle off facts about VKORC1, and R and S enantiomers. You know that the pills are color coded by strength.
But how do you actually dose warfarin? If you're like most of us, you probably don't feel adequately prepared to jump right into managing wafarin therapy with what you learned in the classroom.
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Monoclonal antibodies (-mabs) are a common source of confusion for pharmacy students. They have long, hard-to-pronounce names that all look and sound alike. It's impossible to tell them apart, let alone keep track of where they're used therapeutically.
Well that ends today, you smarty pants tl;dr pharmacy reader, you. Today we're going to show you how to make sense of the entangled maze of -mabs. We're going to show you that there is actually a system to how monoclonal antibodies are named.
Why bother? Because you can tell most of what you need to know about a monoclonal antibody just by the name. You can learn a few simple rules that apply everywhere instead of crowding your brain memorizing endless details that you'll eventually forget after the test.
You can perform better on tests while spending less time studying and still remember the information.
Not to mention, -mabs are the future. They aren't going anywhere. You are going to see more and more of them because they're effective (both clinically and at making money for Genzyme shareholders).
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