Hello everyone! May has been a whirlwind month for me with final grades being due, commencement ceremonies, then 2 weeks in Ireland/UK with students learning about pharmacy and healthcare in those countries. And to top it off, I'm heading out of town to a family high school graduation this weekend! Needless to say, I found it a challenge to find time to do recertification credits. Fortunately, I found a few hours to try out a new recertification product from ASHP: Intensive Study A (Pharmacogenomics). As a reminder, as an ASHP Recertification Ambassador, the recertification products were provided to me for free, but the opinions below are entirely my own.
If you've never done an Intensive Study (like me before this one), here are the details: the presentations were recorded live at an ASHP meeting (Midyear, in this case), and you have access to a pdf of the handouts and the video. There were 2 videos associated with Intensive Study A, both on Pharmacogenomics, with the first one being under 1 hour and the second being just over 90 minutes. You don't see the speakers in the videos, just the slides, and there's no way to "speed up" the videos (I work in academia- I know the students do it!). However, I'm not sure I would have wanted to speed up these videos since they cover some detailed material that is not completely familiar to me. After you watch the videos, then you take the assessment test.
I am not a Pharmacogenomics specialist, but I went to pharmacy school at UF (which is mentioned multiple times in the videos), and I think our curriculum had more Pharmacogenomics content than a lot of other curricula. So the first video in the Intensive Study was really a refresher for me. Then the second video was more detail about certain drugs (mostly oncology and warfarin), which was mostly new to me. Overall, both speakers had good energy that translated to the video (not always an easy thing to do). A criticism I had was that the tables and diagrams on the slides were difficult to see on the video and the handout. I recommend watching the video full screen, but even then, it was a little difficult.
The assessment was 20 questions. I was a little confused if I needed a 70% or a 80% to pass since it said both on the page before the assessment started. Like with the Literature Review Modules, you only get one chance to take the assessment, but you get unlimited time. I found these assessment questions to be not as in-depth as the Literature Review Module assessment questions, but there were a few tricky wordings- so be careful!
All in all, I enjoyed the Intensive Study A on Pharmacogenomics. It was for 3 hours of recertification credit, which I think is spot on with the amount of time I spent on it. I still probably prefer the Literature Review Modules, but I will definitely try out the Intensive Study B and see if my opinion changes. Next month I will probably go back to a Literature Review Module and post my review.
Oh, and if you were wanting more details about Ireland/UK, all I can say is go and visit! It was an amazing trip. :) Until next month!