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...

Boceprevir and Telaprevir: We Hardly Knew Ye

When I was finishing up pharmacy school (2013), the landscape of Hep-C therapy was drastically changing. Two new drugs, boceprevir and telaprevir, were fresh on the market and were "game changers" according to any and everyone. In fact--I presented these new protease inhibitors (in all their majesty) during my residency interviews.

Now it's 2016 and they're both gone.

Clinical, Practice, tl;dr pharmacySamuel OhMay 18, 2016Hepatitis C, HCV, HepC, Boceprevir, Telaprevir, Protease Inhibitors

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.

HIV Boot Camp: Background and Pathophysiology

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.

Background

HIV is a bastard. Let's just start right out with that

New FDA Approval: Nuplazid

Drug

Pimavenserin [Nuplazid]

Indication

The treatment of hallucinations and delusions associated with psychosis in Parkinson's Disease

New FDA Approval: Cinqair

Drug

Reslizumab [Cinqair]

Indication

It's yet another monoclonal antibody (YAMA? #YAMA?) approved for the treatment of severe asthma that is poorly controlled.

FDA Approval, Clinical, PracticeSamuel OhApril 27, 2016cinqair, reslizumab, -mab, Monoclonal Antibodies, asthma, IL-5

Antibiotics: A Quick and Dirty Guide

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").

New FDA Approval: Inflectra

Drug

Infliximab-dyyb [Inflectra]

Indication

It’s a biosimilar to infliximab [Remicade], so it has the same indications. Primarily, you’re going to see it used for Crohn’s disease, ulcerative colitis, and rheumatoid arthritis. But you’ll also see it occasionaly used for ankylosing spondylitis and psoriasis.

FDA Approval, Clinical, PracticeBrandon DysonApril 12, 2016Inflectra, Infliximab, Biosimilar, Remicade