End of Semester Reflection This semester has been the most valuable one to me so far. I have been exposed to such vast amounts of relevant pharmacy material that is extremely difficult to keep up with at times. Although difficult, I am pleased that what I am learning is essential to a pharmacist’s knowledge base and is heavily applied in practice. In this paper, I will reflect on some of the material I have learned in my courses that I will utilize in my future practice. Additionally, I will discuss some places where I found that material from different courses overlapped. In my Psychiatry and Neurology course, we learn about mental disorders and how to treat them. The course follows a specific order for each topic. First, we learn about the basics of what the disease is. Then we learn about the pharmacology of
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Calculating these clearances are very important in practice because depending on the drug, you may need to make dose adjustments so that the patient avoids drug toxicity and is benefitting from the drug itself. For example, if a patient is given a drug that is cleared at 6 L/hr but has 50% renal impairment, I would have to calculate what both the original hepatic and renal clearances were and then account for the 50% reduction in renal clearance to find the new total clearance. Let’s assume that the drug has a renal and hepatic clearance of 3 L/hr each for a total clearance of 6 L/hr. I would then take 50% of the renal clearance and add that to the 3 L/hr of hepatic clearance for an adjusted total clearance of 4.5 L/hr (ClT). I would then use this value to determine the adjusted dose I need to administer. Other factors are accounted for such as bioavailability (F), how often the dose is given (Q), and the desired concentration at steady state (Css). The equation that sums all this up is FD/Q = ClT *
Calculating these clearances are very important in practice because depending on the drug, you may need to make dose adjustments so that the patient avoids drug toxicity and is benefitting from the drug itself. For example, if a patient is given a drug that is cleared at 6 L/hr but has 50% renal impairment, I would have to calculate what both the original hepatic and renal clearances were and then account for the 50% reduction in renal clearance to find the new total clearance. Let’s assume that the drug has a renal and hepatic clearance of 3 L/hr each for a total clearance of 6 L/hr. I would then take 50% of the renal clearance and add that to the 3 L/hr of hepatic clearance for an adjusted total clearance of 4.5 L/hr (ClT). I would then use this value to determine the adjusted dose I need to administer. Other factors are accounted for such as bioavailability (F), how often the dose is given (Q), and the desired concentration at steady state (Css). The equation that sums all this up is FD/Q = ClT *