Acid - Base Disorders: Essentials for Pharmacists

I have a confession to make...

I didn't "get" acid-base disorders until well after pharmacy school. They were something I was willing to skate through. To take an "L" on the exam if I had to.

HIV Boot Camp: NNRTIs

Non-Nucleoside Reverse Transcriptase Inhibitors, or NNRTIs (pronounced like NRTIs, but with a stutter), are the next class of HIV drugs we will be covering.

What makes a NON-nucleoside as opposed to a regular old fashioned nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor?

The Epidemic of 'Professional Shaming'

Hi, I'm Brandon.

I like to joke around when I'm writing about fun topics like Oncology or Antibiotics.

But today I'd like to talk to you about something serious.

I'm talking, of course, about professional shaming.

Pharmacy School, Practice, Professional, ResidencyBrandon DysonAugust 8, 2016professional shaming

The Ultimate Guide to Oncology Pharmacy for the Non-Oncologist

Oncology pharmacy is hard.

Like, really hard.

You get a 3 - 5 week module during school. Maybe you have an APPE rotation. But there's just too much. Too many types of cancers. Too much history that explains how we got to where we are.

Psych Pharmacy: Depression Treatment and Overview

Editor's Note: It is with great pleasure that I introduce Nina Vadiei, PharmD. Nina is a totally bad ass PGY2 Psych Pharmacy Resident who has written the excellent post you're about to read. She's sort of like a wizard when it comes to all things 'psych,' and we really appreciate her dropping knowledge bombs here for you all.

Pro Tip: There is a whole bunch of awesome dosing charts at the end of this post.

Hypertension: A tl;dr pharmacy overview

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.

The pharmacy profession is moving on...with or without you

In my former life (pre-pharmacy school), I was a manager for a chain drug store. For the purposes of this article, I will affectionately refer to it as "Globo Gym."

I was in this role during a pivotal moment in pharmacy practice--the year that pharmacists gained the widespread ability to administer vaccines.

HIV Boot Camp: NRTIs

Nucleoside Reverse Transcriptase Inhibitors make up what's called the "backbone" of every traditional HAART regimen. It is also an awfully long phrase to type, so I will refer to them only as "NRTIs" from here on out.

But before I go on, there's another distinction I have to make. There are actually both nucleoside and nucelotide reverse transcriptase inhibitors. We lump them into the same "NRTI" bucket because they work in exactly the same way. But they are technically different from each other.

The Complete (but Practical) Guide to Vancomycin Dosing

Editor's Note: She's baaaaaaacccckkk... Stephanie Kujawski, PharmD, BCPS is back with the next installment in her epic series: Pharmacokinetics Dosing Wars. Up for today, we have Episode II: Attack of the Vancomycin. It seems that our hero, Han Solo, has contracted a nasty MRSA infection (which apparently you can do while being frozen in carbonite).

Malpractice Insurance: We Talkin' About Practice?

Chances are you've been advised to carry malpractice insurance at some point during your career. In a litigious society such as ours (presuming you're in the U.S.), this is probably good advice for us all (#AAAE).

However, just because you're a pharmacist doesn't necessarily mean you need to run out there and get the cadillac of insurances...

HIV Boot Camp: Treatment Goals and Considerations

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?

Pharmacokinetics: Dosing Wars

So, you’re a second year pharmacy student sitting in pharmacokinetics class. You're listening to your professor animatedly discuss this strange new topic. But let’s be honest, you’re still trying to figure out what the word "pharmacokinetics" (or even regular "kinetics") means.

Frankly, you’re just excited to have a new super long word to use when playing hangman with your classmates.