Blogs

I love the transition from summer to fall.  The leaves start to change, the weather cools down, and fall produce returns to farmers markets and grocery stores.  Also, some of my favorite shows start new seasons. Project Runway, anyone?  Tim Gunn is the master at encouraging the designers to "Make it work".  I'd say this is solid advice, especially for busy pharmacists trying to navigate the demands of work and life, not to mention recertification!  For this round of recertification modules, I tried a pdf reader to help me maximize my time.  Basically, these work by reading pdfs out loud, essentially making it an audiobook.  If you want to take back time lost while commuting to and from work, this might be a good thing to try.  Make it work! 

Now, about this month's module...
Module 2A focused on hepatology, specifically the treatment and management of Hepatitis C.  It was composed of two studies on Hepatitis C treatment, as well as the AASLD/IDSA guidelines.  This subject area can be very dense, given the need to navigate various treatment options, drug interactions, concomitant disease states, social and financial issues.  The module authors did a nice job of focusing on the aspects important to a board certified pharmacotherapy specialist.  I was surprised to see a descriptive study published in the NEJM, let alone a descriptive study used to make treatment duration recommendations.  I am not well versed on treatment recommendations for Hepatitis C, but hopefully there is stronger evidence now available to support the duration recommendation presented as the take away from this study. The assessment questions were fairly straightforward overall.  There were no statistics questions related to the 2 studies, but there were patient assessment questions that really tested knowledge on which treatments (and duration of therapy) are most appropriate. I also came away with a great resource for checking HepC drug interactions, which will be a nice addition to my drug information toolkit.

Have you ever used a pdf reader?  Thoughts or comments on this post or this module? Feel free to let me know here on Connect or on Twitter: @renagosser