Topic of Choice 2024

 During my first shadowing experience in my P1 year, I shadowed a P4 on one of their rotations in the University Hospital. Her rotation was in surgery in urology. During this experience, I was able to sit in during table rounds. It was intimidating to see this side of pharmacy initially. With all the healthcare professionals sitting at a table discussing patient cases, it seemed so fast, and I was unfamiliar with some jargon. At one point, the team asked the P4 for their recommendation on an antibiotic, and she answered right away. I was impressed by her preparedness. I also shadowed a pharmacist in Pediatric Cardiology at Motts Children's Hospital. During this experience, I saw rounds where the team walks to each patient's room, discusses the patient's cases, and sometimes talks with the parents. This pharmacy field is different because of the limited resources in pediatric cardiology medications. These experiences have increased my interest in working in an ...

 During my first shadowing experience in my P1 year, I shadowed a P4 on one of their rotations in the University Hospital. Her rotation was in surgery in urology. During this experience, I was able to sit in during table rounds. It was intimidating to see this side of pharmacy initially. With all the healthcare professionals sitting at a table discussing patient cases, it seemed so fast, and I was unfamiliar with some jargon. At one point, the team asked the P4 for their recommendation on an antibiotic, and she answered right away. I was impressed by her preparedness. I also shadowed a pharmacist in Pediatric Cardiology at Motts Children's Hospital. During this experience, I saw rounds where the team walks to each patient's room, discusses the patient's cases, and sometimes talks with the parents. This pharmacy field is different because of the limited resources in pediatric cardiology medications. These experiences have increased my interest in working in an interprofessio...

This year we witnessed the end of the college career of arguably the greatest female basketball player of all time and one that should be in the conversation for best basketball player of all time.   Caitlin Clark is now moving to the WNBA to finally reap the rewards of an incredible talent and years of hard work.   With Victor Wembanyama, the first draft ick in the NBA last year signing a contract that will pay him an average of around $14 million dollars, Caitlin Clark is going to be a millionaire.   Or so you may think.   Clark is actually going to make an average of 80K a year over the first three years.    Here is another number for you.   Buddy Hield is the 80 th highest paid NBA player.   He makes $19.2 million dollars a year.   That salary would cover the salaries of all WNBA players. That pay gap is not unique to basketball or sports.   The argument that the pay is linked to what the league brings in is a weak one at best. ...

https://chat.openai.com/share/3a56f9e1-8ecb-4bc5-8d04-4a0dc50b0c2a      I decided to go back to earlier in our semester when we discussed AI. I have not been the biggest fan of the recent craze regarding AI and how it is being addressed at the University. I am still a bit confused about what UMich’s stance regarding AI is. This confusion makes sense, though, because there is uncertainty about how continued AI advancement will change our lives' functionality. Nobody is quite sure what healthcare will look like in the future. AI has the potential to drastically change many aspects of healthcare, including electronic records, at-home health monitoring, surgeries, and many more. Since I did not have a specific topic in mind for this blog post, I decided to utilize AI to help me out.       I had a lovely little conversation with ChatGPT. I’m hoping you can access the entire conversation in the attached link at the beginning of this post. I would first like ...

          You might be wondering what 5-FC + Amphotericin B has anything to do with Pharmacists + AI. The answer is simple (part of which you should know for Exam 4) - both of them have the potential to act synergistically with each other.                   Regardless of the mixed opinions about AI, I personally have found it so valuable and helpful in my daily life. I have chatGPT bookmarked in my browser, and use it all the time when I don’t feel like putting my question into Google and reading through different links. AI might be something good to use in our daily lives, but what about in healthcare? It’s beginning to be used more and more, but is that a good thing? Are our jobs as pharmacists really going to be taken over by robots in the future? Best case scenario - pharmacists and AI work together in synergy to create patient-centered solutions for common healthcare problems, and this is already ...

  In our recent class discussion on AI’s impact on healthcare, I became intrigued by its role in pharmacy practice. Specifically, I wanted to look into how AI is revolutionizing drug repurposing which is a method to find alternative uses for drugs in a faster, safer, and more cost-effective way. One notable drug repurpose I was able to find was when researchers were finding treatments for COVID-19. Due to the COVID-19 cases rising so quickly, a solution had to be figured out fast, so researchers turned to AI to explore potential drug options to treat the virus. The AI pulled data from PubMed and DrugBank databases, it then went through large amounts of data and thousands of drugs, and generated a list of 41 potential drugs that could be effective. This way, researchers are able to spend more time investigating those drugs and truly identify an effective treatment instead of trying to narrow down thousands of drugs by themselves. A few drugs on this list were dex...

  For my topic, I wanted to look more in depth into religious beliefs that impact medical treatment, including the choice to abstain from certain aspects of care, as well as the ability to file a religious exemption for life-saving medical procedures. First, I looked into why Jehovah’s Witnesses do not accept blood transfusions, as this was something briefly mentioned in class. According to their website, Jehovah’s Witnesses abstain from blood transfusions because the Bible directly states to do so in four places. They also “avoid taking blood not only in obedience to God but also out of respect for him as the Giver of Life”. Many differences between sects come from varying interpretations of religious texts. Here, they are taking a literal interpretation of passages such as Genesis 9:4, “ Only flesh with its life – its blood – you must not eat”. Most JWs refuse whole blood and its components, as it is seen as a sin, but they do take infusions derived from blood, such as albumin. I...

       Gender affirming care is a topic that has been experiencing lots of controversy within the political landscape, but within the pharmacy field gender affirming medication therapy is seen as an opportunity to use our skills as medication experts to best help our patients. Approximately 1.6 million patients in the United States are receiving some form of gender affirming medication therapy. Clinical pharmacists have been utilized more recently in the management of stable patients receiving long-term medical care, such as in diabetes, hypertension, hyperlipidemia, etc. For many individuals receiving gender affirming medical treatment after a year on their feminizing or masculinizing medications they only have to have slight adjustments to doses based on a biannual primary care visit with labs.      Addition of a pharmacist during this required visits during the maintenance phase of the patient’s transition would increase access to gender affirming c...

      I see no other choice for me other than to talk about the pharmaceutical industry and specifically drug pricing for our last blog post. Drug pricing remains a large topic of controversy in the United States, as many drugs are incredibly high in price making it unaffordable for the vast major of the population. Even with insurance, drug prices can be extremely expensive and new and novel drugs that are not available in generic formulations can also contribute to high costs. While the pharmaceutical industry is much to blame for the high costs, there are many contributing factors to drug prices.     While many pharmaceutical companies claim that the prices of their drugs are so high due to the amount of money poured into research and development and clinical trials, studies have actually found no connection to how much a company spends on R&D and the cost of a drug. Companies also spend an extreme amount of money on advertising for certain drugs. Ma...

In the aftermath (and continuation) of the COVID-19 pandemic, Long COVID and other Post-Covid Conditions have become a hot topic in medical news. One manifestation of Long COVID is Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome, or POTS. POTS is defined by a faster than normal heart rate (>100 bpm) upon standing upright. When patients with POTS stand up, their blood vessels don’t respond normally to norepinephrine and epinephrine, while their heart will respond; thus, blood pools in the legs while heart rate increases. The result of this is feeling dizzy, faint, or suddenly exhausted. Other symptoms of POTS include forgetfulness, heart palpitations, anxiety, dyspnea, chest pains, migraines, nausea, insomnia, and exercise intolerance.  While POTS may seem like a new condition, it has been around since long-before COVID. My former roommate from undergrad was the first person I met who had been diagnosed with POTS, and for three years, I saw firsthand the impact it made on her wellbei...

       As I’ve grown up and become more involved in my own healthcare, I have started to realize how important advocating for yourself can be. In the current healthcare system, knowing the right questions to ask, being perseverant, and seeking second opinions can be crucial to receiving the highest quality of care. Being in pharmacy school has allowed me to have a better understanding of my own medical conditions and the medications I am on, so in turn I am able to ask better questions and have more productive discussions about my care during my appointments. This has not always been the case for me and I’m sure is not often the case for a lot of people. Doctors are often short on time and this can lead to biases and assumptions taking the lead and concerns being dismissed. Advocating for yourself in these situations is not always easy. Anxieties and fears can make it harder to voice concerns or ask questions. Language barriers or low health literacy can lead to misu...

The direct to consumer genetic testing has proven to be a gold mine for enterprises. Many genetic tests are aimed at consumers to take control of their health, investigate the risk of diseases, and learn about their ancestry (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10317585/). This article also addresses a concern I never thought about--the test's impact on stereotypes, both from the public and preexisting ones.  The article indicates the test's lack specificity and can result in a great number of false positives because of the single nucleotide polymorphism its made to compare to. SNPs can have polymorphisms that are related to disease, but when comparing a rare sample to genome-wide association studies, there is a significant increase in false positives. These false positives then increase the risk of patients having unnecessary testing and procedures done. 23AndMe only identifies the breast cancer gene that is only common to Ashkenazi Jews, and not the general populatio...

       I have always been quite passionate about pharmacists being able to prescribe. After our inter professional case with the third year med students, I feel even more passionate about this. Pharmacists are drug experts with knowledge that goes to the molecular level of drugs and the human body. Pharmacists are trained to recognize drug interactions and know what side effects each drug consists of. For patients on multiple medications with multiple comorbidites, the process of prescribing becomes that much more complex. Pharmacist are trained to be able to complete comprehensive medication reviews on all patients.     This past semester, we met with med students to discuss a geriatric patient case. It became clear to me and my classmates that they had no idea what type of schooling we go through. They also mentioned that when they look at medication lists they assume the dosing and medications are correct or prescribed by someone else. They were unsure o...

      I'm going to choose a controversial topic to discuss, and that is abortion and contraception. I went to a private Catholic school throughout elementary school. I remember we had field trips that were just kneeling and praying outside the nearest hospital that performed abortions. We even had to write letters to President Obama begging him to not allow abortion in our country. (He didn't personally answer by the way, some secretary at the White House responded a year later for him). Everything I know now regarding this subject is what I had to research on my own, as both my family and my school did not discuss it.      I think part of the reason why it is so hard to reach a middle ground that everyone can agree on in this topic is that there is such a fundamental divide in morals. I can see how it would be so hard to listen to the other side's opinion if you genuinely believe that they are "killing babies." You can scientifically and logically argue th...