Pharmaceutics and Drug Design Commons^™

A Standardized Patient Counseling Rubric For A Pharmaceutical Care And Communications Course, Niambi Horton Pharmd, Kenna D. Payne Pharmd, Michelle Jernigan Pharmd, Jill Frost Pharmd, Stephen Wise Pharmd, Mary Klein Pharmd, Joel Epps Mba, H. Glenn Anderson Pharmd

Pharmaceutical Science and Research

Objective. To restructure a required pharmaceutical care and communications course to place greater emphasis on communication skills and include a high-stakes assessment.

Design. A standardized counseling rubric was developed for use throughout the pharmacy curriculum and the counseling laboratory practicals were changed to high-stakes assessments.

Assessment. An annual mid-semester and end-of-semester high-stakes patient-counseling objective structured clinical examination (OSCE) conducted prior to and after revision of the course and counseling rubric documented improvements in students’ scores. Performance on the post-course annual assessment patient counseling OSCE improved compared to that on the pre-course (p,0.001).

Conclusion. The 2010 course revision improved …

An Update On Braf Inhibitors And Other New Molecular Targets For The Treatment Of Malignant Melanoma Of The Skin, M. O. Faruk Khan, Carroll L. Ramos

Pharmaceutical Science and Research

Malignant melanoma of the skin originates from mutations in melanocytes and can be lethal if unrecognized or untreated in its earlier stages. Deaths from melanoma are increasing in the United States and around the world every year. The available treatments produce low rates of response with modest survival impact. Among potential molecular targets under investigation, which are mostly in the tyrosine kinase pathway, the BRAF (V-raf murine sarcoma viral oncogene homolog B1) gene is the best studied and most frequently reported mutation in melanoma. The molecular targets for melanoma treatment, promising drugs for future melanoma treatment as well as the …