Acute liver failure.

ABSTRACT: Acute liver failure, commonly caused by acetaminophen overdose, is associated with numerous systemic complications including cerebral edema, hypotension, acute kidney injury, and infection. Management is primarily supportive, with an emphasis on excellent neurocritical care. Although some antidotes and targeted treatments exist, the only definitive treatment remains orthotopic liver transplant.

Break time: Examining pharmacy residency application deadlines and the potential impact of a proposed timeline shift.

INTRODUCTION: Many pharmacy residency programs set their application deadlines around the first of the calendar year, only weeks following the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP) meeting in mid-December. This contributes to a condensed timeframe for applicants and reference writers to complete and submit materials over the winter holidays. This study examined pharmacy residency program application deadlines and respective timing of application and reference letter submissions. METHODS: This retrospective, observational study evaluated all residency programs within the ASHP residency directory. Several scenarios were examined for impact of a universal earliest deadline (UED) designation spanning early January. Subsequent analysis included compilation of application and reference submission dates from a sample of ASHP-accredited residency programs to determine timing of submission in regard to application deadline. RESULTS: A total of 2449 programs representing 4927 positions were identified for the 2018-2019 application cycle. The mean deadline was 5 January (± three days), and 11% of programs had a deadline prior to 1 January. Among the five first-year residency programs that provided application and reference submission data spanning the 2016-2020 application cycles, the average time from submission to application deadline was four days for applicants and 11 days for references. CONCLUSIONS: Most pharmacy residency programs have deadlines in early January. Implementation of a UED would cause a major shift for these programs but is only one component of change for the application process.

Design and implementation of a molecular imaging elective for third-year pharmacy students.

OBJECTIVE: To design, implement, and evaluate a molecular imaging elective course that would expose Doctor of Pharmacy (PharmD) students to fundamentals of various imaging modalities and their pre-clinical and clinical applications. METHODS: The "Surveys of Multi-Modality Imaging" course is a two-credit hour elective course offered to third-year PharmD and doctoral students. Experiential learning methods including active learning application-based exercises were used to supplement didactic lectures in the form of field trips (with follow-up debriefings), small group team-based tasks, hands-on demonstrations, visual modelling, gamification with problem sets, concept maps regarding given modalities, and concluding with written summary reports and formal in-class group presentations. In addition to standard course evaluations, a pre- and post-course survey were conducted to assess the students' confidence regarding course content. RESULTS: Since its implementation in 2013, 101 students have completed the course with 72% being PharmD students (n = 73) and the remainder being doctoral students in pharmaceutical science (n = 28). Pre- and post-assessments completed by the students the last two offerings (n = 40 of a possible 43) indicated a shift in students' self-reported confidence in discussing imaging modalities from a total of 2.4% confidence (pre-course) to 97.4% confidence (post-course). Also, post-course survey indicated that 77.5% (n = 31 of 40 participants) students strongly agreed that our immersive and experiential learning activities were beneficial to overall learning for this elective. CONCLUSION: Students who participated in this innovative experiential learning-grounded course gained an appreciation for molecular imaging and its value and role in modern drug therapy.