OPA New Practitioner Experience (NPX) Committee LaunchpadWinter 2024 |
Welcome to the Winter 2024 edition of the NPX Launchpad, the quarterly newsletter intended to help you, a new practitioner, excel personally and professionally!
Check out our featured articles:
We hope you enjoy the NPX Launchpad and we invite each of you to take the next step in your professional growth by getting involved with NPX today!
Sincerely, your NPX Advisory Team,
Chair: Megan (Stephan) Hull, R.Ph., PharmD, BCACP
Vice-Chair: Jennifer Wick, R.Ph., PharmD, MPH, BCACP
Member-at-Large: Korie Maryo, R.Ph., PharmD
Member-at-Large: Eric Dierkes, R.Ph., PharmD
Member-at-Large: Regann Rutschilling R.Ph., PharmD
Launchpad Coordinator: Rebecca Lahrman, R.Ph., PharmD, MS, BCACP
A preceptor is, by definition, a teacher, one who is an experienced pharmacist (or other healthcare provider). A preceptor provides supervision and instruction during clinical practice and facilitates applying clinical knowledge and skills to practice. Preceptors work with learners, like student pharmacists or pharmacy residents, to help them gain the competencies they need to provide safe, effective, and legal patient care. Preceptors help learners meet learning objectives by setting expectations and providing feedback on their performance.1
My name is Stuart Dowling, and I am a first-year community pharmacy resident here at Holzer Health System. Originally born and raised in Georgia, I completed my pharmacy education at Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine (PCOM) in Suwanee, GA in 2022. My career passions always resided in ambulatory care which is why I chose Holzer Health System’s community-based program. Holzer Health System is a community health system with two campuses and multiple clinics in the Southeastern Ohio area. In the outpatient clinics I mainly work at, I educate patients on their medications and give recommendations to their providers on how to better optimize their chronic disease management. As part of the program, I am required to do multiple presentations which include disease state overviews to medical residents or on recently approved medications to the clinical pharmacist team. One such presentation was a journal club on the FRAIL-AF trial that I will summarize for you.
Due to the nature of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and side effects of antiretroviral treatments (ART) used to treat HIV, many patients experience what is known as lipohypertrophy, or excess visceral fat in the abdominal area. The exact mechanism of lipohypertrophy in patients living with HIV is unknown, and few treatments exist to assist patients in getting rid of this excess abdominal fat. One of the treatments that does exist is EGRIFTA SV® (tesamorelin for injection), an injectable growth hormone-releasing factor (GHRF) analog used for the reduction of excess abdominal fat in patients living with HIV. This drug is complicated, to say the least. It requires a special ordering mechanism, must be dispensed through a specialty pharmacy, has a prior authorization process, and has a complex administration mechanism - a nightmare for pharmacists and patients alike.
There are endless chocolate chip cookies recipes to choose from and after making these from the Milk Bar entrepreneur Christina Tosi, I don't think I’ll look for another. I love that if I forget to set the butter out, or have a sudden need for a batch of cookies then this is the perfect shortcut since you do not need room temperature butter. She has an excellent episode on Chef Show that helps to highlight the magic she created and how to make the best bake sale cookies.
I got this recipe from White Lily’s instagram and have modified it a bit since I never keep self-rising flour on hand and am too lazy to re-roll dough.
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Help contribute to the next Launchpad newsletter! Articles may be submitted for Pharmacy Trivia, Rx Impact, Financial Future, A Taste of Our Kitchen, and Ohio Days. Have an idea for another article relevant to students and new practitioners? You can submit that as well!
Sign up for upcoming articles HERE.
Articles should be submitted in a Word document to Rebecca Lahrman at lahrman.6@osu.edu. Photographs for articles should be submitted as attachments for higher quality reproduction. Thank you!