Remediation Models Used in a Pharmacy Calculations Course.
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Strachan DA
PROVIDER: S-EPMC8127094 | biostudies-literature |
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
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Project description:Poor performance in foundational science courses, which are usually taken during the first or second year of pharmacy school, can have several negative consequences including increases in student drop-out rates and increases in the number of dismissals and remediating students. The primary goal of the current study was to determine whether completion of a pre-pharmacy biochemistry course and/or performance on a biochemistry competency test (administered at the beginning of the pharmacy program) are associated with pharmacy student performance in foundational science courses and overall academic performance. A secondary goal was to determine whether performance in pre-pharmacy courses and/or student demographics are associated with pharmacy student performance. Prospective univariate analyses (n = 75) determined that completion of a pre-pharmacy biochemistry course is not associated with pharmacy student performance. However, performance on a biochemistry competency test was associated with performance in Biochemistry and Cell&Molecular Biology (p = 0.002). Furthermore, post-hoc analyses determined that pre-pharmacy cumulative chemistry GPA correlates with performance in both the Biochemistry and Cell&Molecular Biology and Medicinal Chemistry foundational science courses (p = 0.002 and p = 0.04, respectively) and can predict first year GPA (p = 0.002). The combined data indicate that further assessment of the impact of pre-pharmacy competency in biochemistry and chemistry on pharmacy student success is warranted.
| S-EPMC6789439 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Biopolymers are viewed as effective and eco-friendly agents in soil modification. This study focuses on the wettability analysis of polyacrylamide (PAM) solutions for soil remediation. The contact angle, surface tension, and viscosity of PAM solutions were experimentally evaluated in air- and decane-biopolymer solution systems. Furthermore, a micromodel was used to investigate the pore-scale displacement phenomena during the injection of the PAM solution in decane and or air saturated pores. The contact angle of the PAM solution linearly increases with increasing concentration in air but not in decane. The surface tension between the PAM solution and air decreases at increasing concentration. The viscosity of the PAM solution is highly dependent on the concentration of the solution, shear rate, and temperature. Low flow rate and low concentration result in a low displacement ratio level, which is defined as the volume ratio between the injected and the defended fluids in the pores. The displacement ratio is higher for PAM solutions than distilled water; however, a higher concentration does not necessarily guarantees a higher displacement ratio. Soil remediation could be conducted cost-efficiently at high flow rates but with moderate concentration levels.
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Project description:Continuum methods for calculation of protein electrostatics treat buried and ordered water molecules by one of two approximations; either the dielectric constant of regions containing ordered water molecules is equal to the bulk solvent dielectric constant, or it is equal to the protein dielectric constant though no fixed atoms are used to represent water molecules. A method for calculating the titration behavior of individual residues in proteins has been tested on models of hen egg white lysozyme containing various numbers of explicit water molecules. Water molecules were included based on hydrogen bonding, solvent accessibility, and/or proximity to titrating groups in the protein. Inclusion of water molecules significantly alters the calculated titration behavior of individual titrating sites, shifting calculated pKa values by up to 0.5 pH unit. Our results suggest that approximately one water molecule within hydrogen-bonding distance of each charged group should be included in protein electrostatics calculations.
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Project description:BackgroundThere has been limited research about preceptor training programs that include coaching, experiential practice or development of preceptor coaching capacity. We describe the development and evaluation of a workplace preceptor training course for pharmacists and pharmacy technicians within a large regional health authority.MethodsThe instructional format was self-study readings and interactive seminars followed by structured practical experience plus feedback from a preceptor coach. During the structured practical experience, each participant served as a preceptor for a student or new staff member. Course evaluations and qualitative interviews were used to evaluate utility and perceived value among participants. Interview transcripts were analyzed using qualitative description and themes were aggregated; illustrative quotes are presented.ResultsSince 2006, a total of 40 pharmacists and technicians have participated in the course and interviews were conducted with 14 of these participants. Aspects of the course that interview participants found to be particularly useful included receiving feedback from a coach, implementing a lesson plan and identifying and using different learning and teaching styles. Some participants described changes in attitudes or behaviours toward new employees or students, the use of new learning styles and changes in focus and approach to being a preceptor.DiscussionThis unique course could be applied in other workplaces where pharmacy staff members help to deliver experiential education programs. The delivery format was appropriate for a mixed group of pharmacist and technician participants.ConclusionA preceptor training course of readings, seminars and structured practical experience with feedback from a coach resulted in satisfaction with learning experiences and evidence of attitudinal and behavioural change up to 3 years after the course.
| S-EPMC3567570 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Understanding models of pharmacy education and practice in low-to-middle income countries (LMIC) can drive best practices and resource utilization. However, there is a paucity of literature in this setting. The purpose of this report is to describe the length and breadth of pharmacy education and training in Tanzania as well as pharmacy practice models at 3 institutions. Lessons learned and implications for global pharmacy practice described herein aim to advance the profession and pharmacists' impact in LMIC settings. The Muhimbili campus is located in Dar es Salaam, the largest city in Tanzania, a LMIC in East Africa, and is comprised of 3 institutes and a health professions school. Despite variance in patient populations, all Muhimbili institutions have developed pharmacy services in outpatient and inpatient pharmacies, central pharmacy stores, intensive care units, and operating theaters. Unique pharmacy practice areas result from a variance in patient populations serviced and include services in pharmacovigilence/drug information, compounding, oncology, nephrology, and emergency departments. Medication availability and the complexity and time commitment of patient billing are consistent challenges, and multidisciplinary collaboration a common strength across the 3 institutions. Pharmacists at Muhimbili perform innovative and critical functions to support optimal patient care tailored to specific patient populations. The detailed review of these services can serve as a model for pharmacy practice at other health systems in LMIC and beyond.
| S-EPMC7995494 | biostudies-literature
Project description:BackgroundIn Australia, the profession of pharmacy has undergone many changes to adapt to the needs of the community. In recent years, concerns have been raised with evidence emerging of workforce saturation in traditional pharmacy practice sectors. It is not known how current final year pharmacy students' perceive the different pharmacy career paths in this changing environment. Hence investigating students' current experiences with their pharmacy course, interaction with the profession and developing an understanding of their career intentions would be an important step, as these students would make up a large proportion of future pharmacy workforce.ObjectiveThe objective of this study was thus to investigate final year students' career perspectives and the reasons for choosing pharmacy, satisfaction with this choice of pharmacy as a tertiary course and a possible future career, factors affecting satisfaction and intention of future career paths.MethodsA quantitative cross sectional survey of final year students from 3 Australian universities followed by a qualitative semi-structured interview of a convenience sample of final year students from the University of Sydney.Results'Interest in health and medicine' was the most important reason for choosing pharmacy (n=238). The majority of students were 'somewhat satisfied' with the choice of pharmacy (35.7%) as a course and possible future career. Positive associations were found between satisfaction and reasons for joining pharmacy such as 'felt pharmacy is a good profession' (p=0.003) while negative associations included 'joined pharmacy as a gateway to medicine or dentistry' (p=0.001). Quantitate and qualitative results showed the most frequent perception of community pharmacy was 'changing' while hospital and pharmaceutical industry was described as 'competitive' and 'research' respectively. The highest career intention was community followed by hospital pharmacy.ConclusionComplex factors including university experiences are involved in shaping students' satisfaction and perception of career. This may relate to challenges in the community pharmacy sector, job opportunities in hospital and limited understanding of the pharmaceutical industry. The results offer insight for the profession in terms of entry into various roles and also to pharmacy educators for their roles in shaping curricula and placement experiences that attract future graduates to defined career pathways in pharmacy.
| S-EPMC4100949 | biostudies-literature
Project description:ObjectiveThe fragility index is a clinically interpretable metric increasingly used to interpret the robustness of clinical trials results that is generally not incorporated in sample size calculation and applied post-hoc. In this manuscript, we propose to base the sample size calculation on the fragility index in a way that supplements the classical prefixed alpha and power cutoffs and we provide a dedicated R software package for the design and analysis tools.Study design and settingThis approach follows from a novel hypothesis testing framework that is based on the fragility index and builds on the classical testing approach. As case studies, we re-analyse the design of two important trials in cardiovascular medicine, the FAME and FAMOUS-NSTEMI trials.ResultsThe analyses show that approach returns sample sizes which results in a higher power for the P value based test and most importantly a lower and context dependent Type I error rate for the fragility index based test compared to standard tests.ConclusionOur method allows clinicians to control for the fragility index during clinical trial design.
| S-EPMC8665025 | biostudies-literature
Project description:A significant challenge and potential high-value application of computer-aided drug design is the accurate prediction of protein-ligand binding affinities. Free energy perturbation (FEP) using molecular dynamics (MD) sampling is among the most suitable approaches to achieve accurate binding free energy predictions, due to the rigorous statistical framework of the methodology, correct representation of the energetics, and thorough treatment of the important degrees of freedom in the system (including explicit waters). Recent advances in sampling methods and force fields coupled with vast increases in computational resources have made FEP a viable technology to drive hit-to-lead and lead optimization, allowing for more efficient cycles of medicinal chemistry and the possibility to explore much larger chemical spaces. However, previous FEP applications have focused on systems with high-resolution crystal structures of the target as starting points-something that is not always available in drug discovery projects. As such, the ability to apply FEP on homology models would greatly expand the domain of applicability of FEP in drug discovery. In this work we apply a particular implementation of FEP, called FEP+, on congeneric ligand series binding to four diverse targets: a kinase (Tyk2), an epigenetic bromodomain (BRD4), a transmembrane GPCR (A2A), and a protein-protein interaction interface (BCL-2 family protein MCL-1). We apply FEP+ using both crystal structures and homology models as starting points and find that the performance using homology models is generally on a par with the results when using crystal structures. The robustness of the calculations to structural variations in the input models can likely be attributed to the conformational sampling in the molecular dynamics simulations, which allows the modeled receptor to adapt to the "real" conformation for each ligand in the series. This work exemplifies the advantages of using all-atom simulation methods with full system flexibility and offers promise for the general application of FEP to homology models, although additional validation studies should be performed to further understand the limitations of the method and the scenarios where FEP will work best.
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Project description:Surfactants are increasingly used in systems that come into contact with the human body, such as food, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics and personal hygiene products. Increasing attention is being devoted to the toxic effects of surfactants in various human contact formulations, as well as the removal of residual surfactants. In the presence of ozone (O3), anion surfactants-a characteristic micro-pollutant-such as sodium dodecylbenzene sulfonate (SDBS) in greywater, can be removed using radical advanced oxidation. Herein, we report a systematic study of the SDBS degradation effect of O3 activated by vacuum ultraviolet (VUV) irradiation and the influence of water composition on VUV/O3, and determined the contribution of radical species. We show a synergistic effect of VUV and O3, while VUV/O3 reached a higher mineralization (50.37%) than that of VUV (10.63%) and O3 (29.60%) alone. The main reactive radicals of VUV/O3 were HO•. VUV/O3 had an optimal pH of 9. The addition of SO42- had almost no effect on the degradation of SDBS by VUV/O3, Cl- and HCO3- slightly reduced the reaction rate, and NO3- had a significant inhibition on the degradation. In total, SDBS had three isomers, with which the three degradation pathways were very comparable. Compared with SDBS, the toxicity and harmfulness of the degradation by-products of the VUV/O3 process decreased. Additionally, VUV/O3 could degrade synthetic anion surfactants from laundry greywater effectively. Overall, the results show the potential of VUV/O3 in safeguarding humans from residual surfactant hazards.
| S-EPMC10145303 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Soils collected from a petroleum hydrocarbon contaminated site in Greenland.
| PRJEB18076 | ENA