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.
Read MoreIn 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.
Read MoreNucleoside 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.
Read MoreEditor'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).
Read MoreChances 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...
Read MoreEditor'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?
Read MoreSo, 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.
Read MoreEditor'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
Read MoreIt 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").
Read MoreHello Everyone! Just a quick note to mention that we wrote a guest post over at the very awesome www.meded101.com
The post goes through some HIV wisdom for the NAPLEX....which is fast approaching if you're a P4. You can check it out here:
https://www.meded101.com/top-5-hiv-clinical-pearls-naplex/
Read MoreHepatitis C has been in the news a lot recently. On one hand, the advances in research have some touting the disease on the verge of being "cured." On the other hand, the "Because We Can, That's Why" $1000 per pill regimens are coming under scrutiny from congress.
Many of us try to avoid Hepatitis C (HCV) because so much of the therapeutics are new and "foreign" to us. Also, the HCV treatment guidelines have changed at least twice in the time it's taken you to read this far. But HCV isn't going away. And you know it's going to be on the NAPLEX. So let's dig in, and see if we can't make some sense of this ever-evolving disease.
Read MoreHere's the scene. I'm a new PGY1 resident. I'm still a little nervous with the whole "residency" thing. I'm on my first rotation, covering is an IMC unit (which has patients less sick than an ICU, but more sick than a regular medicine floor). It's still early in the residency, and I'm already tired. Rounds start at 9am, but I arrived hours before to work up my patients. And I woke up hours before that because I hadn't yet lost my motivation for exercise and general health and wellness.
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