by Deleisa Johnson

Plato said, “Necessity is the mother of invention.” But, just having a good idea is not enough. Transitioning an invention from idea to marketable product takes something more—an entrepreneurial spirit, as well as a little confidence.

Three Washington State University PharmD candidates have taken an idea, their entrepreneurial spirit, and the confidence gained from winning the 2006 NCPA Pruitt-Schutte Student Business Plan Competition and launched a much-needed product for pharmacy students.

Flash Forward is a company that produces flash cards of the top 250 drugs. Jason Doss had the idea for the cards in his first year of pharmacy school. “I knew I was going to have to make flash cards for class and I wanted to make it easier by purchasing a set of flash cards instead,” he said. Not finding any for purchase, he realized that there was a need that was not being met. Read the full story

by SDN Member SpirivaSunrise

Nuclear pharmacy is a specialized practice area in pharmacy that involves compounding and dispensing radiopharmaceuticals to be used in various nuclear medicine procedures.  Unlike radiology, nuclear medicine is a fantastic tool for assessing physiology (function), as opposed to only structure and anatomy.

It is a unique niche within pharmacy and this article will provide an overview of the specialty area, including common radiopharmaceuticals and procedures used in nuclear medicine, as well as the role of a nuclear pharmacist on the healthcare team.

From a business perspective, the industry’s current standing includes nuclear pharmacies which are either institutional (and cater to a single medical center), or commercial.  Centralized commercial pharmacies are contracted by hospitals/clinics to provide radiopharmaceuticals.

Today, there are only a few major radiopharmacies: GE (formerly known as Amersham), Covidien (formerly known as Tyco or Mallinckrodt), and Cardinal Health (which bought out Syncor, among others), as well as a few smaller independents. Read the full story

by Abby Beane, SDN Contributing Writer
Edited by Sean Parrish

Since October is National Pharmacists Month, now is an excellent time to examine the evolving role of pharmacists in the modern health care system. The profession of pharmacy is going through a period of vast development and change. Instead of being tied solely to the product of medications and dispensing, it is diligently recreating its image into an increasingly cognitive practice.

Pharmacists have become such an integral part of the health care team because they have the unique advantage of being among the most accessible health care professionals. As patients come in once a month to refill a prescription, the pharmacist tends to be the professional that they see the most regularly.

Unfortunately, due to the mandates of insurance companies, physician visits are growing shorter and shorter these days.

If a patient presents for an acute condition during a physician visit and that condition is addressed and cared for, there is generally little time left for the management and care of any chronic conditions. It is in the management of such chronic conditions that the cognitive services offered by pharmacists can be useful.
Read the full story

by Emily Forest
SDN Staff Writer

While some associate prescription drugs with expense and inconvenience, others seek out the drugs, lying to get prescriptions, and buying pills illegally. Such “drug seeking behavior,” familiar to medical professionals when it involves Ritalin, OxyContin, Xanax, or any number of drugs noted to increase productivity, sink patients into an opiate-induced haze, or sedate those wishing to evade the stresses of life, abuse of anticonvulsants, antipsychotics, antihistamines, and others, represents a new frontier of drug abuse.

One of the more well-known and well-documented drugs of abuse, diphenhydramine is an antagonist to the H1 receptor, which seems, given its over-the-counter status, to be innocuous. Like many sleep aids, including the more recently developed Ambien, the drug was at first touted as having low associated risk of dependency (1). However, there has been much evidence to the contrary.  Read the full story

PRESS RELEASE

This February, SDN introduced the first admissions guide for pharmacy school applicants. The Student Doctor Network Pharmacy School Admissions Guide aims to help prospective pharmacy students make an informed career decision and to guide them through the school selection, application, interview, and admissions processes. The 140 page guide contains perspectives from a wide variety of students and practitioners who share their advice and real life experience and other helpful features such as a mock interview outline, an overview of the profession, and recommended reading links. To order a copy of The Student Doctor Network Pharmacy School Admissions Guide, please visit Amazon.com.

Table of Contents

• An introduction to pharmacy as a career
• An overview of professional duties
• Required training, education, and licensure
• Career and employment opportunities
• Preparing to apply to PharmD programs
• Choosing your potential schools
• Prerequisites to admission
• Building your qualifications
• Required examinations
• Financing your PharmD
• The PharmD admissions process
• Preparing your application
• Letters of reference
• Personal statements
• Interviews
• Responding to offers of admission
• Reapplication
• Recommended reading for prospective PharmD students
• Real students, real answers
• Practitioner interviews

Get yours today!

by Alison Hayward, M.D. and Sarah M. Lawrence
SDN Staff Writers

Scenario
An 18 year old male presents to the ED where you are working at about 3 am after being at a “rave.” The patient is staring off into space, clenching his jaw, and trying to hug the nurse as she starts an IV. The nurse has difficulty starting the IV due to patient’s dehydration. You notice his pupils are enlarged and he is tachycardic, he grabs your pen light and stares into it and moves it around in circles. His body temperature is elevated. Would you know what substance was most likely the cause of this patient’s condition? Read the full story

Pharmacists’ refusal to fill legally written prescriptions has recently become a topic of debate among healthcare providers, employers, lawmakers, and the general public.

The issue is often framed as a question of patient rights vs. pharmacist rights, due to the public controversy over the emergency contraceptive “Plan B” which has unfolded over the past decade. However, the issue carries broader implications, extending to drugs intended for abortion or immediate post-abortion care, lethal injection for use in the potentially abused medications such as narcotics.

The stakes are so high for interested parties that states across the country have been pressured to take a position for or against pharmacists’ refusal to fill through legislation and policy changes. As of November 2006, five states (AR, CA, GA, MS, SD) have chosen to codify the right of a pharmacist to refuse to fill a prescription on moral grounds, while four (IL, MA, NC, PA) have passed legislation requiring pharmacists to fill or transfer certain prescriptions.¹ Read the full story

The longstanding joke is that doctors have horrible handwriting. But it’s no laughing matter.

While handwriting doesn’t play a major role in most peoples’ careers, in the medical field, it can mean the difference between life and death. Whether it’s a mix-up between Lamisil and Lamictal, Cerebyx and Celebrex, Zyrtec and Zantac, or Sarafem and Serophene, confusion over drugs with similar spellings and similar sounds accounted for 15 percent of all errors reported to the United States Pharmacopeia Medication Errors Reporting Program from 1996 to 2001. In fact, it’s such a problem that the Food and Drug Administration even appointed a panel of experts to review proprietary drug names—just to try to alleviate such confusion in the future.

But beyond drug name mix-ups, poor penmanship also accounts for many other errors. Read the full story