Preceptor GPS GUIDING PHARMACY STUDENTS
Spring 2011 3 Preceptor Education Send a Confidential Comment to School about a Student
Drug Information 4 A Pillbox for Drug Identification
5 On Mission in Belize Team Report
Faculty Focus 6 Dr. Lauren Peyton
7 Research School News 8 National Patient Counseling Competition National Clinical Skills Competition
W
elcome to the first edition of Preceptor GPS. Global positioning systems (GPS) can pinpoint where you are and guide you to your destination. As preceptors, you serve as a GPS for our students. You help students realize where they are professionally, and you guide them in their educational journey. Thank you for fulfilling that role so capably. This newsletter is dedicated to YOU. It will include university news, helpful tips, and additional features. We trust you will find this newsletter beneficial as you guide students.
The Dean and Faculty of the School of Pharmacy at Union University invite you to a
Preceptor Appreciation Banquet to celebrate your service to the School of Pharmacy Thursday, March 31, 2011 | 6:30 pm Grant Events Center Union University | Jackson, Tennessee Live Continuing Education Credit Offered Please RSVP by March 17 to Laura at 731-661-5321 or lladymon@uu.edu
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D
uring the past three years, the Union University School of Pharmacy has celebrated a number of important milestones. In August of 2008, the School of Pharmacy opened its doors and began teaching the 41 students who make up the Class of 2012. Many of you joined us for the first White Coat Ceremony that marked the entering of this class into the profession of pharmacy. In January of 2009, those same students completed their first introductory pharmacy practice experiences (IPPEs) at community and institutional practice settings across West Tennessee. Many of you were among that inaugural group of Clinical Preceptors who trained those students, some of who had not been in your type of practice setting prior to that first day. In August of 2010, the School of Pharmacy moved into its new home on the campus of Union University, Providence Hall. Again, many of you joined us as at the Building Dedication as we celebrated how God has blessed us with such a wonderful facility in which to train our students. Most recently, February 2011 marked another very important milestone. This month marked the beginning of advanced pharmacy practice experiences (APPEs) for the Class of 2012. The majority of their required course work is complete and what lies ahead are ten very important months. During those ten months, our students will complete their required and elective APPEs (rotations). They will work with you, our Clinical Preceptors, to build and refine their knowledge that will make them valued members of our profession. In 2007, the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education (ACPE) revised its standard for the accreditation of schools
of pharmacy. That revision included the requirement that greater than thirty percent of each student’s pharmacy education must take place outside the four walls of the university. That education must be in the practice setting, allowing the student to take knowledge obtained in the classroom and apply it in the care of patients. As Clinical Preceptors, you have a huge opportunity and responsibility. While we as faculty can build a foundation and the early frame work of each student’s knowledge, you have the opportunity to build the final structure of their education. The work you do is vital in the preparation of these students. Job 23:10 says “… when he has tested me, I will come forth as gold.” I challenge you to “test” these students. Put them through the fire that allows their metal to form and shine. Prepare them as you would your own children. Praise them when they do well. Tell them where they need to improve. Push them to do their best, and in the end, we will all be very proud of what they have become. Finally, remember Galatians 6:9. “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.” I know that training students is a very rewarding, but sometimes challenging experience. Don’t give up. Keep investing. The harvest will be worth it!
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PRECEPTOR EDUCATION
Send a Confidential Comment to School about a Student As a preceptor, your assessment of student performance should be shared with the student prior to them leaving the rotation. Evaluations that you complete, including your comments, are visible to through E*Value to the student. These comments are a great source of information for the student as well as the School.
However, you may want to notify the School of a praiseworthy action or of a concern. These evaluations or comments can be made completely confidential through On-The-Fly Evaluations.
Select “On-The-Fly” from the User Menu.
1. Select the evaluation type, “Comments About Students”. 2. Select the student. 3. Select the Course/Rotation that you offer. 4. Select the Time Frame. Select either “APPE COMMENT” or “IPPE COMMENT.”
Add your comments about the student and select “Submit.” An email will be generated to the Director of Experiential Education that includes your confidential comments. This is a great tool to use to notify the School of important information regarding a student when you would prefer the student not be able to see the comment. 3
DRUG INFORMATION
A Pillbox for Drug Identification Many of the general drug information references used in community and hospital pharmacies (e.g., Clinical Pharmacology, Facts and Comparisons E Answers, Micromedex) have a product identification tool. Recently, the National Library of Medicine (NLM) launched a free, online tool called Pillbox (http://pillbox.nlm.nih.gov/) for the purpose of identifying solid, oral drug products. Much like the other database tools, you can search Pillbox by entering a product’s color(s), imprint code(s), scoring, shape, and size. With Pillbox, searchers can also find a description and image of a drug product by entering the drug name, active ingredient, inactive ingredients, drug labeler, or DEA schedule. This can be useful, for example, if you know what product you want to use but do not know if it is scored for your patient, appropriately sized, or a controlled substance. All of these fields are searched using Pillbox’s Advanced Search. Pillbox also has a unique search tool that allows you to browse images of drug products based on any one of those characteristics. For example, if you have a white, round, single-scored tablet with “Mylan” and “232” on one side and “80” on the other side, you can use the Quick Search option and scroll through the images of white, round, single-scored tablets until you happen across the correct product. This may be a misnomer since the advanced
search seems to be the faster option, but none-the-less; very few references allow you to view drug products organized in such a systematic manner. In addition to helping you identify medications, Pillbox also provides links to the products’ approved prescribing information on NLM’s DailyMed website (http://dailymed.nlm.nih.gov) and to other drug information on NLM’s Drug Information Portal (http://druginfo.nlm.nih. gov/drugportal/drugportal.jsp). Prescription and over-the-counter drug products are indexed in Pillbox, but it is currently in the Beta stage of development and incomplete. In September 2010, Pillbox included 10,562 records, and images were available for 10% of the records. If an image is not available for the object of your query, your search will still provide you with all the other information based on your search criteria. You will just not have an image to compare to the product you are trying to identify. Despite this limitation, Pillbox is a useful and valuable tool that will only get better with time.
Andrew Martin, Pharm.D. Associate Professor of Pharmacy Practice
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On Mission in Belize
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n January, the Union University School of Pharmacy Mission Team traveled to Hattieville, Belize to
provide ministry and healthcare services to a community in need. Twenty-five students and ten faculty, staff, and community partners answered the call, not only to provide healthcare to an underserved population, but to minister to their spiritual needs as well. During the week in Belize, students led educational sessions at local schools on various health-related topics, ministered to high-risk youth in hostels and military schools, visited with residents of orphanages and elderly homes, and helped lead worship services at local churches. The team spent time at the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital in Belize City to get a close look at health-systems pharmacy practice and had the opportunity to meet with the national president of the Belize Pharmacists Society. The students hosted health fairs which included blood pressure and blood glucose screenings, one-on-one education on the prevention and treatment of common disease states, and medication counseling. continued on page 6...
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The mission trip was hugely successful on many levels because of the extraordinary effort and dedication that our students demonstrated throughout the week. It was truly humbling to watch them step up into leadership positions throughout the week and take personal responsibility for their patients. They invested themselves wholly in every task and showcased the characteristics of a compassionate pharmacist while drawing on the knowledge that they have gained from the program and you, their preceptors. Let me personally thank you for all that you have given of yourself and
your practice to invest in these students’ lives. I wish I could convey the joy that I felt watching the transformation of these students into healthcare providers. I am still bursting with pride reflecting on all they accomplished, and that is a reflection of the dedication of our partners in pharmacy education—our preceptors.
Jodi L. Taylor, Pharm.D., BCPS Assistant Professor of Pharmacy Practice
FACULTY FOCUS
Dr. Lauren Peyton came to Union after completing a PGY1 residency with an emphasis in ambulatory care at the Regional Medical Center in Memphis. She is currently an Assistant Professor of Pharmacy Practice. In addition to coordinating and teaching in Pharmacotherapy and Patient Assessment and Interviewing, she teaches in other classes including OTC and Applied
Therapeutics. She is also involved in the training of students to become immunizing student pharmacists and to obtain CPR certification. Dr. Peyton’s practice time as a clinical pharmacist is split between managing anticoagulation patients at Skyline Cardiovascular and enhancing patient care at East Jackson Family Medical Center. Most of her time is spent at East Jackson Family Medical Center, where she provides patient education, medication reconciliation, and assistance with disease state management, especially in the area of diabetes. Dr. Peyton was able to fulfill a personal goal recently by participating with the School of Pharmacy on the mission trip to Belize. Her favorite parts of the trip were “getting to know the students better individually and watching them learn and grow throughout the week.”
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RESEARCH
In June 2010, the School of Pharmacy moved into Providence Hall on the campus of Union University. Providence Hall is a 3-story, 57,000 square foot building that is home to the School of Pharmacy and the Center for Excellence in Healthcare Practice. The second floor of Providence Hall contains 8,000 square feet of dedicated laboratory research space devoted to the areas of Medicinal Chemistry, Pharmacology, and Pharmaceutics. In the spring of 2011, pharmacy students will have the opportunity to begin working alongside our Pharmaceutical Science faculty in the areas of disease etiology, drug discovery and synthesis, drug delivery and stability, and population pharmacokinetic modeling. Students in Medicinal Chemistry will have the opportunity, for instance, to use industry-standard modeling software to design new drug candidates for either existing therapeutic targets or completely new targets. Students will then be able to synthetically prepare these agents in our Drug Design and Synthesis laboratory and analyze them using state-of-theart instrumentation in the NMR (Nuclear Magnetic Resonance) and Instrumentation
laboratories. Current projects on the Union campus include developing a synthetic route to a naturally-occurring antifungal compound isolated from the root bark of a Golden larch, native to Eastern China. We have also designed a new class of anti-anthrax and antituberculosis agents in which students will be able to apply parallel synthesis techniques to create a large number of drug candidates to be submitted for biological testing. Research provides PharmD students the opportunity to develop valuable critical thinking/problem-solving skills and to present their findings in a clear and concise manner to their peers, faculty, and the greater scientific community. Each student participating in research at Union will present his/ her findings at the annual Scholarship Symposium held on the campus in early May. Select students will be given the opportunity to present posters at regional and/or national pharmacy or disciplinespecific meetings.
E. Blake Watkins, Ph.D. Chair, Pharmaceutical Sciences
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SCHOOL NEWS
National Patient Counseling Competition Union University recently held its second annual Patient Counseling Competition on November 23, 2010. Ten pharmacy students competed for the opportunity to represent our School of Pharmacy at APhA’s Annual Meeting in Seattle, Washington. Local school winners advance to the National Competition to compete against students from other schools or colleges of pharmacy. Erica Rogers, a third-year student, edged out the competition to win the counseling prize for the second year in a row. Fellow classmate, Aparna Reddy, finished a close second. Erica will once again represent our program well at the national level. Last year, she placed first runner-up at the National Competition in Washington, DC.
Erica Rogers (Center in Black Dress)
National Clinical Skills Competition
Houston Wyatt and Andy McLaughlin
In December of 2010, two third-year students, Andy McLaughlin and Houston Wyatt, represented Union University’s
School of Pharmacy in the national Clinical Skills Competition held yearly at the ASHP Mid-Year Meeting. Andy and Houston were the winners of the local competition held at Union. Five teams competed in the school-wide event. This was our first time to compete in this event both locally and nationally. The Clinical Skills Competition involves review of a patient case and creation of an evidence-based patient care plan complete with pharmacological and non-pharmacological therapy, as well as appropriate monitoring recommendations. 8 Mark Stephens, Pharm.D., BCPS Director of Experiential Education 731-661-5975 | mstephen@uu.edu Laura Ladymon, MBA Coordinator of Experiential and Continuing Education 731-661-5321 | lladymon@uu.edu