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Vancomycin is used for Gram-positive infections, including methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. The 2020 vancomycin guidelines described by M. J. Rybak, J. Le, T. P. Lodise, D. P. Levine, et al. (Am J Health Syst Pharm 77:835-864, 2020, https://doi.org/10.1093/ajhp/zxaa036) provided an update on vancomycin dosing, which recommended an optimal area under the concentration-time curve over 24 h to MIC (AUC/MIC) target of 400 to 600. In 2021, a pharmacy-driven AUC/MIC vancomycin dosing protocol was implemented across 12 Sentara Health System hospitals...

INTRODUCTION: Pharmaceutical care (PC) is the philosophy of the pharmacist's practice to achieve a better health-related outcome by designing, implementing and monitoring the therapeutic plans. It is in its infancy in Yemen. Hence, the study objectives were to examine the barriers to PC provision as perceived by Yemen pharmacy students and to assess their level of understanding of PC and their attitudes toward PC. METHODOLOGY: A cross-sectional study was conducted among ten pharmacy colleges in Yemen, offering undergraduate pharmacy programs...

PURPOSE: To evaluate the safety, effectiveness, and patient-reported outcomes of wavefront-guided photorefractive keratectomy (PRK), for the correction of myopic refractive errors with and without astigmatism. SETTING: U.S. multicenter study. Design: A 12-month, prospective, non-randomized clinical investigation. METHODS: A total of 334 eyes (167 patients) underwent wavefront-guided PRK with the STAR S4 IR Excimer Laser System. Patients had preoperative myopic refractive errors with sphere up to -8...

Background: Drug-related problems (DRPs) are a global issue that impacts the efficacy and safety of the therapy, and pediatric patients are considered to be more vulnerable to DRPs, thus requiring more attention. Community pharmacists (CPs) are in a position that allow them to identify and alleviate these DRPs. Objectives: This study evaluated the ability of CPs in identifying and resolving DRPs in a pediatric prescription. Methods: A cross-sectional study was carried out in 235 community pharmacies to evaluate the ability of CPs working in the Khartoum locality to identify DRPs in a pediatric prescription and how they intervene to resolve these problems...

Continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) is used to help patients with diabetes and their healthcare providers more effectively manage care. CGM use is expanding to all healthcare settings where pharmacists practice and new pharmacy graduates may increasingly be asked to assist patients utilizing CGM devices and assess diabetes management through the interpretation of CGM data. The purpose of this study was to describe CGM education across Doctor of Pharmacy (Pharm.D.) programs in the United States. An online survey was administered to 139 accredited Pharm...

PURPOSE: The Saudi Pharmacist Licensure Examination (SPLE) has been mandated by the Saudi Commission for Health Specialties (SCFHS) for three and a half years; however, colleges of pharmacy and/or pharmacy organizations in Saudi Arabia have yet to implement a comprehensive review program to help prospective graduates to succeed. The aim of this study was to assess the impact of an integrated program designed to enhance students' performance on the SPLE. METHODS: A cross-sectional study was conducted to determine the impact of integrating SPLE review activities (clinical review quizzes (CRQs), disease state presentations (DSPs), a Capstone OSCE, and a mock SPLE) on students' SPLE results and perceptions of their SPLE preparation and performance...

Objective: Blended learning combines traditional face-to-face education with online instruction. This learner-centered approach has been shown to improve student engagement, critical thinking, and performance outcomes. The objective of this study was to assess and trend student pharmacist perceptions of blended and online learning used to teach pharmacy management, leadership, and economics within a Pharm.D. curriculum. Methods: Qualitative methods were employed using in-depth, semi-structured interviews. Second- and third-year student pharmacists were recruited by purposeful and snowball sampling and interviewed to a point of saturation...

Flow cytometry enumeration of Peripheral Blood Dendritic Cells (PBDCs) is a minimally invasive procedure extremely useful for immunological studies. Numbers of PBDCs vary depending on age, lifestyle, or in pathologies like cancer, leukemia or immunodeficiencies. Conventional methods for PBDC identification by flow cytometry involve red blood cell lysis using either formaldehyde or ammonium chloride based solutions. This specific procedure has been widely reported to cause a detrimental effect as well as an artifactual detection of target populations...

A new version of Phish-Pharm: a Searchable Database of Pharmacokinetics and Drug Residue Literature in Fish has been updated and posted online at: https://www.fda.gov/AnimalVeterinary/ScienceResearch/ToolsResources/Phish-Pharm/default.htm . The new version contains over 700 articles encompassing 191 aquatic species (fish, shellfish, and more).Phish-Pharm, first released in 2005, accompanied an article in this Journal, titled "Fish Drug Analysis-Phish-Pharm: A Searchable Database of Pharmacokinetics Data in Fish," by R...

Pharmacists are essential members of the healthcare team. The emergence of the novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has led pharmacists to undertake additional clinical roles. We aim to conduct a systematic review on the interventions and impact of pharmacist-delivered services in managing COVID-19 patients. We searched PubMed, Embase, Scopus, CINAHL plus, International Pharmaceutical Abstracts, and Web of Science from 1 December 2019 (the first case of COVID-19 emerged) to 13 January 2022 to retrieve the articles...

This report documents the development of the 2016 National Hospital Care Survey (NHCS) Co-occurring Disorders Algorithm, which can be used to identify patients with an opioid-involved hospital encounter who had lifetime diagnoses of both a substance use disorder and a selected mental health issue. Lifetime diagnoses are defined as diagnoses at any point in the past or during the current encounter. This algorithm was created to complement the earlier NHCS Enhanced Opioid Identification Algorithm designed to improve the classification of patients with opioid-involved hospital encounters...

The present study involved an extra-cultural adaptation and validation of questionnaire regarding online teaching (QOT) to know faculty perception, attitude and experiences of online teaching. Cronbach's alpha was determined for assessing internal reliability of QOT and found to be 0.886, confirmed that the scale have good reliability. Factor Analysis of the scale (Principal Component Analysis) was used to examine factor structure and then trailed by varimax rotation. The items were allocated four sub scales...

Introduction: Pharmacist-administered immunizations have been associated with improved vaccination rates; however, little is known about whether areas with little to no access to this service ("vaccination deserts") exist. The objective of this work is to determine the geographic availability of pharmacists with authorization to administer injections in the province of Ontario. Methods: Ontario College of Pharmacists registry data were used to identify patient care-providing pharmacists in community pharmacies and their ability to administer injections...

BACKGROUND: Although prophylactic tranexamic acid administration after cesarean delivery resulted in a lower incidence of calculated estimated blood loss of >1000 mL or red cell transfusion by day 2, its failure to reduce the incidence of hemorrhage-related secondary clinical outcomes (TRAnexamic Acid for Preventing Postpartum Hemorrhage Following a Cesarean Delivery trial) makes its use questionable. The magnitude of its effect may differ in women at higher risk of blood loss, including those with multiple pregnancies...

Transient expression of recombinant proteins in plants is being used as a platform for production of therapeutic proteins. Benefits of this system include a reduced cost of drug development, rapid delivery of new products to the market, and an ability to provide safe and efficacious medicines for diseases. Although plant-based production systems offer excellent potential for therapeutic protein production, barriers, such as plant host defense response, exist which negatively impact the yield of product. Here we provide a protocol using tandem mass tags and mass spectrometry-based proteomics to quickly and robustly quantify the change in abundance of host defense proteins produced during the production process...

A solid mastery of Pharmacodynamics concepts is a cornerstone of effective pharmacology education. Understanding the meaning and appropriate use of pharmacodynamics terms such as potency, affinity, intrinsic efficacy, or receptor reserve is extremely valuable but challenging for most trainees. The onus, therefore, is on the educators to devise effective strategies and tools to facilitate the acquisition of this critical competency. When approaching pharmacodynamics, the ability of learners to explore the influence of driving parameters on the magnitude and position of concentration response curves is a powerful way to visualize and make concrete the basic concepts of pharmacodynamics...

OBJECTIVE & HYPOTHESIS: Activation of β2 -adrenergic receptors (β2 ARs) leads to airway smooth muscle (ASM) relaxation and bronchodilation. While this facilitates β2 ARs agonists (β-agonists) as the front-line treatments for asthma and related obstructive airway diseases, their therapeutic efficacy of β-agonists is limited by agonist-induced β2 AR desensitization and activation of non-canonical β2 AR signaling involving β-arrestin. Accordingly, we undertook the identification of an allosteric site on β2 AR and potential ligands, and ascertain their effects in-vitro...

Background: Medical cannabis has been increasingly used in Canada after being sanctioned by Health Canada in 2001. Insomnia and sleep disorders are among the most common conditions for which patients report using cannabis. Current research shows cannabis may have a beneficial effect in sleep disorders and may improve patient-reported sleep scores. Methods: A retrospective chart review was conducted at Hybrid Pharm community pharmacy in Ottawa, Ontario, and included patients who were interested in, or already using, medical cannabis for sleep disorders...

Background: Job satisfaction affects organizational outcomes including performance and retention. The pharmacy job satisfaction literature points to several predictors of job satisfaction, but educational debt and various work settings have not been previously examined. Objectives: To identify predictors of Virginia pharmacists' job satisfaction. Methods: This cross-sectional study used data from the 2018 Virginia Pharmacist Workforce Survey...

Mast cell neoplasms are an emerging challenge in the fields of internal medicine, allergy, immunology, dermatology, laboratory medicine, and pathology. In this review, we discuss the current standards for the diagnosis and prognostication of mast cell neoplasms with special reference to clinically relevant germline and somatic gene variants. In patients with cutaneous mastocytosis or with indolent systemic mastocytosis (SM), various KIT-activating mutations act as key molecular drivers of the disease. In adults, KIT p...