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I can still remember how frantic the medical resident was when she got to the last page of the transfer records for one of her newly admitted patients.  

 "What do I do with this?!" 

She brought the papers over to me and sat down.  I looked at it and had no clue what to do with it.  It appeared to be results of some genetic testing, but I didn't know what the results meant or how it would inform the drug therapy for this patient during the admission.  What do you do when you encounter a clinical conundrum that you don't feel adequately trained for? It was drilled into my head in undergrad and pharmacy school to admit to not knowing the answer and promise to look it up and get back promptly with a final answer. Sound familiar?  As a PGY1 resident with limited clinical experience, I went back to basics.  I did a little research, phoned a more knowledgeable pharmacy friend, and it resolved nicely.

I quite enjoyed the format of this module, Pharmacotherapy Intensive Study A (Pharmacogenomics).   I don't have a very strong background in pharmacogenomics, like most pharmacists according to the module.  The module did a great job of starting at the basics and building up so that you felt comfortable making a drug therapy recommendation based on genetic information.  The format was different from the other recertification modules.  It was a two-part recording of a presentation done at Midyear.  The presenters were fantastic and I felt engaged the whole time, even though it was just slides and audio.   The 2.5 hours went by fairly quickly.  The assessment itself was pretty straightforward, most likely because the presenters did a good job of incorporating examples into the presentation.  I found the slide with additional resources most valuable for future drug policy use, as some of the resources are not in my drug information "toolkit".  

Overall, it was great to have recertification module content presented by pharmacists, for pharmacists. In many ways, it took me back to the root of what pharmacists can do to serve patients.  Personalizing medicine at the genetic level is another way that we can provide care as drug therapy experts.  I am excited to see what impact personalized medicine has on the profession of pharmacy as more research becomes available.

Thoughts? Feel free to reach out here on Connect or Twitter: @renagosser