June is more than halfway over already! How did that happen??? June is supposed to be my “slow” month since I’m going to be out of town or have visitors every weekend in July and the first half of August, so I’m really wishing June would be longer! Anyone else shocked how fast the summer is going by???
This month, I went back to the Literature Review Modules and did 1C: Pulmonary (VTE & Pneumonia). As a reminder, I am provided the recertification materials for free from ASHP, but the opinions in this blog post are entirely my own.
This module included only 3 articles: the ESC Guidelines for the diagnosis and management of pulmonary embolism, a study about the rate of pneumonia hospitalizations after a decade of pneumococcal vaccination, and a review article on community-acquired pneumonia. Notice no article directly about stats! The guideline document is very lengthy, so I anticipate that’s why there were only 3 articles in this module. I likely would not have read these guidelines in as much detail if it weren’t included in this activity, and it was pretty interesting to see the similarities and differences between the structure of these European guidelines and some U.S. guidelines. As an ID specialist, I had already read the last 2 articles, so that cut down on my necessary reading time substantially, but it was a nice refresher. What patient groups seemed to benefit from pneumococcal vaccination the most? (Read the articles in the module to find out!)
The assessment contained 30 questions, 20 on the guidelines and 5 on each of the other articles. Overall I felt that this assessment was more straightforward than some of the others. However, there is still some stats material mixed in, so even though there’s no article about stats, you are still assessed on it! I think the assessment questions did a good job of asking about different kinds of patient groups and how the guidelines would apply to them, and I could see this knowledge being practical for many BCPS pharmacists. However, there were a couple of questions that seemed to rely very heavily on the actual guidelines to answer the question (meaning you wouldn’t be able to answer them after reading the guidelines without referring back to details in the guidelines). I think this cuts down on the ability to use the knowledge practically, except that you will know where the details are in the guidelines.
Overall, I’m still very content with the quality of the Literature Recertification Modules. One highlight I wanted to mention is that you have access to all the articles even after you are done with the module. I completed some literature review modules in 2013, and I can still access the articles through ASHP’s elearning website. I don’t know if the access will go away after the module is no longer valid for general Pharmacist CE, but I hope the access will continue.
Enjoy the hot summer, everyone. Until next month!
~Lindsey