news in brief
From left: University of Arizona P4 Student Pharmacist Ashley Sweaney, Clinical Assistant Professor Dr. David A. Apgar and P4 Student Pharmacist Karolina Seminova.
the inaccuracy. They then write up their findings in a formal way, complete with appropriately formatted reference citations. To assess student outcomes of the course, Apgar provides individual feedback to each student. The result has been that all the students have better searching skills, better writing skills and better citation formatting skills after completing the course. Also, they all have become more familiar with a number of sources used in the course. Some of the major examples of these sources include UpToDate, Harrison’s Internal Medicine text, Cecil Internal Medicine text, Mandell’s Infectious Disease text, and several other specialty textbooks (e.g., on rheumatology, endocrinology, and oncology).
From course to senior project As Annie Walenga entered her fourth year of clinical rotations in 2008, she asked Apgar if she and two other students could work with the House TV show concept for their Pharm.D. senior project. Together they developed the project proposal, and the result was the first senior project in which students evaluate the accuracy of medical statements on the show, onehalf season at a time.
It’s the job of the students in PhPr 899-002 to analyze the accuracy of the signs and symptoms, diagnoses and treatments presented.
The senior project differs from the course. In the senior project, each team of students studies a different season of House. They rate each episode on the accuracy of presenting signs and symptoms, methods used to arrive at the final diagnosis and the final therapy presented.
What about that needle? So what are some of the medical anomalies the students have found in the program? In one episode, House and his team diagnose a patient with tuberculosis and hand him a “pill” of streptomycin—but streptomycin is given by injection, not by tablet. And what about that needle in the eye for a retinal biopsy? The scene was wrong on two counts: 1) to take a retinal biopsy, the needle should be inserted sideways, through the white of the eye, not through the front of the eye, where it would pierce the lens and the cornea and cause blindness; and 2) the diagnosis the medical team is trying to make in this episode is usually done using a test of the patient’s spinal fluid, not a retinal biopsy. These are just the kinds of inaccuracies students in PhPr 899002 would discover.
academic Pharmacy now Jul/Aug/Sept 2011
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