Campus-community pharmacy partnership to foster awareness and use of MedlinePlus.

OBJECTIVE: To determine the impact of a campus-community pharmacy partnership to foster awareness and use of National Library of Medicine (NLM) databases, including MedlinePlus, among minority populations. DESIGN: Uncontrolled study with pretest and posttest. SETTING: Two community pharmacies and Bethel World Ministry in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area. PARTICIPANTS: 8 student pharmacists and pharmacy residents and 92 patients. INTERVENTION: Training of patients by student pharmacists and pharmacy residents in the use of NLM databases during prescription-fill wait time. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Pre- and post-survey responses and telephone followup designed to assess familiarity with NLM databases, including MedlinePlus. RESULTS: Overall, the familiarity of the participants with MedlinePlus and NLM databases increased fivefold before versus after training. The 1-week follow-up confirmed this trend. However, no statistically significant differences in responses (pre-and posttest/follow-up) to the surveys were observed in regard to specific questions on daily and future use of the NLM databases available on the Internet. CONCLUSION: Awareness and use of MedlinePlus by study participants increased.

Complementary and alternative medicine instruction in nursing curricula.

With an ever-increasing number of consumers reportedly using non-conventional methods of disease management, nurses have now been recognized as key providers in education on complimentary and alternative medicine (CAM). The risk of herb-drug interactions secondary to consumer use of alternative medicines further increases the need for nurses to assume the role of patient educators in the area of CAM. Many nurses, however, feel rather ill-prepared to properly care for patients using CAM due to inadequate instruction on the subject matter during their training. Many nursing educators have now moved to address such concerns by considering including education on CAM therapies in the nursing school curriculum. This study evaluated CAM education in US nursing schools to gain a perspective on how nursing students are currently being trained. A survey questioning CAM education was administered to 148 nursing schools and collected over a 3-month period. The results indicate that nearly half of the responding schools offered some form of education on CAM in their curriculum with electives being the primary form of instruction. Teaching methodologies on CAM instruction in the curriculum included group discussion on CAM topics, lectures, and review of case studies. The majority of faculty respondents in this study held Ph.D. degrees followed by instructors holding a MS, DNS, and/or MSN degree.