The College of Pharmacy offers a Doctor of Pharmacy degree which stresses the clinical role of pharmacy in the delivery of health care. The program trains individuals to be drug specialists who can interact with other health care professionals and patients in a clinical setting. The competencies of the Doctor of Pharmacy include the ability to utilize knowledge of the disease state, physical assessment and laboratory data of the patient in evaluating and recommending appropriate drug therapy. The Doctor of Pharmacy must be able to anticipate, identify and solve therapeutic problems. In addition they must be able to monitor and evaluate the responses of the patient, and recognize side effects and toxicities attributed to drug therapy. To achieve these competencies, the College offers a 2 semester sequence of Human Physiology and Pathophysiology (PHYB 301 and 302) to its entry level students. This offerings combine normal physiology with abnormal body function and the pathogenesis of disease states. It is assumed that the baccalaureate trained pharmacist has had basic courses in physiology but little or no formal course work pathophysiology. The backgrounds of these prospective students were considered in the development of the Continuation Curriculum Option. Pathophysiology 633, is a course which was developed from one year sequence of Human Physiology and Pathophysiology. We assume knowledge of normal physiology and have designed the course to provide the background in abnormal physiology and pathogenesis. These topics are necessary for your subsequent courses in the post-baccalaureate Doctor of Pharmacy curriculum. The governing directive in the development of this, as well as other CCO courses, was "parity" with the entry level degree. The audience for Pathophysiology 633 is expected to come from a wide variety of backgrounds, experiences and knowledge of physiology. The faculty is aware that many of the students may have been away from college courses for credit for several years. The assumption of the faculty is that this professional group of adult learners will analyze their individual situations, then review, update, or even learn for the first time fundamental principles of physiology. These circumstances were considered in the development of the course objectives and the selection of the course textbook. Self-motivation is a primary factor for success in a self-instructional curriculum. The traditional lecture/hourly exam format which "meters" information to students is not used, and thus students are required budget their study time on their own. The use of goals, instructional objectives and diagnostic examinations will aid students in achieving success in this nontraditional educational format. The course is divided into 5 learning units each ending with a proficiency examination. Criteria based levels of performance are stated and the student's progress is monitored. The faculty believes that the motivated adult learner, given clear objectives, can be successful in this course offering as well as other courses in the curriculum. The course materials are derived from three main sources: 1) a course textbook: Pathophysiology, Clinical Concepts of Disease1 (see below), and 2) transcribed lectures presented to the Doctor of Pharmacy students. It is a rare for an instructor to find any single textbook to match the course syllabus. Since this course incorporates the areas of physiology, pathology, biochemistry, medicine and others, the problem of textbook selection is made even more acute. Indeed, pathophysiology is considered a "hybrid" and not a formal discipline by many professional educators. Given all these difficulties, the textbook selected has been highly rated by pathophysiology students on their evaluations. This textbook incorporates the majority of the subject matter dictated by the goals established during the design phase of the Continuation Curriculum Option. The textbook also reflects the materials included in the traditional presentation of Pathophysiology in the entry level Doctor of Pharmacy curriculum. In addition, it was written for a course which uses a self instructional format. Each chapter has detailed learning objectives and ends with a practice post test. The textbook is meant to serve as the primary source of material. The objectives are not encyclopedic in scope, but rather the course focuses on the mechanism of disease by studying representative diseases. The student should always learn the mechanism by which a disease begins (etiology) and progresses (pathogenesis). Ultimately the student learns how normally functioning organs and tissues become abnormal in disease (pathophysiology). In addition, the student should learn the symptoms directly emanating from the abnormal physiologic condition. The student is being trained to become a clinical drug expert and not a diagnostician, therefore the information concerning pathologic (anatomic) changes in tissues leading to a clinical diagnoses are not emphasized. However, there are numerous definitions which are based upon anatomic appearance, and various diagnostic procedures are also used to help monitor adequate drug therapy. The student will be directed to these areas by specific instructional objectives when such materials are to be learned. The student will not be tested on details of drug therapy. Pathophysiology provides the basis for drug therapy which is properly the subject matter of another courses. The course textbook, Pathophysiology, Clinical Concepts of Disease Processes1, is organized into diseases of the organ systems. Each major section begins with a chapter on normal physiology. The student will not be examined on these physiology chapters, however the principles and terminology are assumed knowledge in the subsequent pathophysiology study units. It's to the student's benefit to review these chapters before beginning the study unit. To aid the student in this endeavor, the study guide which precedes each unit will direct the student to the most important basic physiological principles that should be reviewed. The lecture transcriptions are edited from selected lectures presented to the entry level students. The lecturers are physicians and Doctors of Pharmacy who are specialists in their subject. Editorial problems abound in the conversion of a live presentation, often given with slides, to a written transcript. The interactive communication that occurs between the speaker and audience is lost, along with the emphasis of visual aids. In an attempt to regain some of these losses, the students is provided, or directed to, supplemental materials, which may serve as a source of diagrams or photographs. The lecturers knew that their audience had just completed their course work in normal human physiology and their presentations often pick up where the physiologists left off. Therefore beginning a new unit in pathophysiology, it's recommended the student study those chapters which review basic physiology.
Harrison's Principles of Internal Medicine2, is a useful supplemental textbook for this course. It is likely that this text will be required for your future courses in drug therapy. Non obligatory supplemental reading from this text will be listed in the study guides from each unit. No test questions will be derived from supplemental textbook readings. Cross references to this text are included for those students who wish to explore a topic in depth.
Craig A. Miller, M.S. Course Coordinator.
1 Sylvia Anderson Price and Lorraine McCarty Wilson. (1997). Pathophysiology, Clinical Concepts of Disease Processes. (5th ed.). St. Louis: Mosby-Year Book.
2 Anthony S. Fauci, Eugene Braunwald, Kurt Isselbacher, Jean Wilson, Joseph Martin, Dennis Kasper, Stephen Hauser and Dan Longo, Editors. (1998). Harrison's Principles of Internal Medicine. (14th ed.). New York: McGraw Hill INC.
Pathophysiology is a required course in the Continuation Curriculum Option for the Doctor of Pharmacy Degree. It is offered to post-baccalaureate pharmacy students to prepare them for subsequent courses in pharmacology and drug therapy. The primary goal of this course is to learn and comprehend the functional abnormalities of the organ systems of the body which provides the rational basis of drug therapy. This goal is to be accomplished on a self-instructional basis utilizing textbooks, lecture transcripts, journal articles and supplemental readings. The progress of the student will be determined by objective examinations graded on a standard scale.
The most important information in your study guide are the instructional objectives for each chapter or lecture transcript. Instructional objectives are statements which indicate what the student is expected to learn at the completion of the unit of study. They are learning outcomes and effectively direct the student to the most important concepts or definitions in the learning materials. They serve as an outline of the main topics to study. Since the objectives reflect what is to be studied all the examination questions will be derived from these written objectives. The number of objectives reflects the emphasis given to the material by the instructor. The student should omit material not covered by an objective. Following each written objective, there are hyphenated numbers in brackets ( e.g. [11-08] ). These hyphenated numbers are from a master list of objectives covering the entire text. The first digits represent the chapter number and the second number represents a concept or definition that was presented in the chapter. Usually these numbers follow sequentially indicating a progression of material as presented in the chapter. Occasionally there may be a gap in the sequence which indicates the student should skip over the material between assigned objectives. (The codes used for transcribed lectures have a different meaning: [241-04] means unit 2, lesson 4, lecture 1 - objective 4). This coding system is used to cross reference each examination question to specific objectives assure that you will be tested on only the assigned material. The text includes numerous review chapters in basic physiology. If you choose to study these review chapters, follow the objectives listed to cover the most important material. Review material is always indicated by parentheses. No test questions will be derived from review material (i.e. basic physiology). In an attempt to give emphasis to certain objectives, that material will be underlined. Underlined objectives are key concepts in pathophysiology and often that material provides a basis for understanding topics in subsequent courses in pharmacology and drug therapy. No objectives are given for the supplementary reading materials. Supplementary readings are given for those students who wish to understand a disease state in depth (drug therapy, differential diagnosis, pathological findings etc.). These readings are optional and test questions are not derived from those sources. The coding technique above may at first seem cumbersome but busy students have found this technique answers their most often asked questions: What should I learn and what is most important? So to reiterate: 1) Study only material for which there is a written objective - all examinations are derived from these objectives. 2) Underlining indicates an emphasis should be given to the study of that objective. 3) Review objectives are in parentheses and 4) Examination questions will not be derived from review objectives or supplemental readings.
The assigned textbook is: Sylvia Anderson Price and Lorraine McCarty Wilson. (1997). Pathophysiology, Clinical Concepts of Disease Processes. (5th ed.). St. Louis: Mosby/Yearbook. The Study Guide for each unit will contain: 1) an introduction with instructions, 2) special comments concerning the study unit or lecture transcription, 3) assigned instructional objectives, 4) reading assignments, 5) lecture transcriptions, 6) Non obligatory supplemental reading assignments.
Pathophysiology, and the therapeutic treatment which is based upon that knowledge, is an ever changing areas of medical science. Research discloses new mechanisms of disease and clinical investigations broaden our understanding of treatment. This course is intended to serve as a basic science for your understanding of treatment and drug therapy. Treatments are occasionally included so the student has a general idea how a procedure or drug intervenes in a disease process, but it is not our purpose to learn these treatments. Procedures and drug treatments are included (often parenthetically) as points of information and are not intended to serve as definitive sources of clinical information. Learning specific treatments for a disease are the goals of other courses in drug therapy and the clinical clerkships.
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