CHSU Pharmacy Faculty and Students Host Workshop for Doctors Academy Students
February 28, 2016
On Saturday, February 27, 2016, several faculty members and PharmD students from the CHSU College of Pharmacy hosted a workshop for Doctors Academy students and their families at the UCSF Fresno LaCMER Health Education and Leadership Conference held on the Sunnyside High School campus. The workshop was titled, “The Making of Medicine,” and was designed to introduce high school students to the field of pharmacy.
The goal of the workshop was to provide a hands-on learning experience for approximately sixty 10th grade students in the UCSF Fresno LaCMER Doctors Academy from Caruthers, Selma and Sunnyside High Schools who are interested in a career in medicine or another health profession. Parents and other family members of the 10th graders were pleasantly surprised to learn that they were also welcome to participate. CHSU College of Pharmacy students who were bi-lingual and fluent in Spanish and Hmong , along with the conference translators, enjoyed speaking to students and their families in their native language to ensure that all attendees could participate.
CHSU College of Pharmacy faculty members: Amy Richardson, PharmD, Assistant Professor of Clinical Sciences at CHSU College of Pharmacy; Chandra Kolli, PhD, Associate Professor of Pharmaceutics; and Sree N. Pattipati, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Pharmacology, along with P2 students: Hemjot Kaur, Beth Rapiz, Roberto Garcia; and P1 students: Neil Rakholia, Nancy Ma, Raymond Vo, Mandhir Johal, Mai Lee Yang, Alexander Pham, Leticia Ordonez; facilitated the workshop to introduce the role of pharmacists on the health care team. The 10th graders and their parents were delighted to hear that pharmacists can practice in over 25 different specialty fields, including more direct patient care roles such as Clinical pharmacists, where they conduct physical assessments similar to those conducted by nurses and physician assistants.
But there is one specialty that only pharmacists can do and that’s compounding, or the making of medicine. The 10th graders learned that compounding can be used to provide medication to patients in different forms – liquid suspensions or creams instead of a tablets – or doses and flavors that aren’t made by medication manufacturers. The two compounding activities that students engaged in were a suspension and an oil emulsion.
A suspension is a mixture with solid particles that do not dissolve in the liquid. The suspension that the students made was an antacid – a medicine that neutralizes stomach acidity to relieve heartburn. Then the students created an emulsion or a mixture of two unlike liquids that require an emulsifying agent, the best example would be oil and water. The emulsion that the students made was a mineral oil laxative that helps with constipation. Since drinking an oil is unpleasant to most people, making an oil in water emulsion masks the taste of the oil and makes the medicine easier to drink.
The students took pride in making their compounds and even added flavoring and coloring, which is commonly done in practice to help the medicine smell and taste better. After making their medication, the students bottled them and learned how to read the medication labels as well as the protocols and importance for ensuring the information is correct before the pharmacist signs off.
While the primary goal of the workshop was to introduce the 10th graders and their families to the role of pharmacists, the most enriching part of the activity, was that the 10th graders and their parents learned valuable information regarding the importance of properly taking medications and seeking health care and that with some hard work, becoming a pharmacist is an attainable goal. The students also received information about the coursework and pathways to get into pharmacy school and were invited to attend Visitation Day at CHSU College of Pharmacy on Saturday, March 12 from 10:00 am to Noon to tour the CHSU campus in Clovis and learn more about the program as they work towards their career and college goals.
The pharmacy students at CHSU benefitted with a valuable leadership and educational experience that will help them now perform better in their respective programs and later when they are applying for internships, residencies and jobs.
Visit our the California Health Sciences University facebook page to see the full photo album from the workshop: https://business.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.588942304597837.1073741856.122139694611436&type=3&business_id=965447920205365
To learn more about the UCSF Fresno Latino Center for Medical Education and Research and the Junior Doctors Academy, Doctors Academy and Health Careers Opportunity Program they offer, visit their website at: http://www.fresno.ucsf.edu/latinocenter/index.html