units

PGC5002

Faculty of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences

print version

This unit entry is for students who completed this unit in 2016 only. For students planning to study the unit, please refer to the unit indexes in the the current edition of the Handbook. If you have any queries contact the managing faculty for your course or area of study.

Monash University

6 points, SCA Band 2, 0.125 EFTSL

Postgraduate - Unit

Refer to the specific census and withdrawal dates for the semester(s) in which this unit is offered.

Faculty

Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences

Coordinator(s)

Ms Amy McRae

Quota applies

This unit is quota restricted. Selection is on a first-in, first enrolled basis. For more information please contact the faculty at http://monash.edu/pharm/future/contact/

Offered

Parkville

Notes

For postgraduate coursework pharmacy discontinuation dates, please see http://www.pharm.monash.edu.au/students/pg-coursework/unit-discontinuation-dates.html

Synopsis

This unit examines aspects of clinical laboratory data, monitoring patient signs and symptoms and issues in therapeutics. Areas covered include pharmacokinetics, clinical pharmacy, cardiology and topics in general medicine. The focus of these topics is patient care in both hospital and community settings. Students must be practicing pharmacists in positions with patient contact. To undertake this unit students are required to contribute their own cases.

Outcomes

At completion of this unit it is expected that students will be able to:

  • Describe the pathophysiology of selected disease states and explain the rationale for drug therapy.
  • Describe the therapeutic approach to management of these disease states including reference to the latest available evidence.
  • Discuss the controversies in drug therapy.
  • Comment on new (investigational) approaches to drug therapy.
  • Identify the patient-specific parameters relevant in initiating drug therapy, and monitoring therapy (including alternatives, time-course of clinical and laboratory indices of therapeutic response and adverse effects).
  • Explain clinical interpretation of selected laboratory results in the context of patient monitoring.
  • Understand, define and calculate pharmacokinetic parameters to optimise drug dosing for specific patients.
  • Demonstrate clinical skills relevant to each therapeutic area being studied.

Assessment

Participation in on-line discussion(s): 30% (hurdle)
Assignments: 40%
Submission of a learning portfolio: 30% (hurdle)

Workload requirements

Minimum total expected workload to achieve the learning outcomes for this unit is 144 hours per semester typically comprising a mixture of scheduled learning activities and independent study. The unit requires on average 10-12 hours of scheduled activities per week. Scheduled activities may include teacher directed learning, reading time, participation in tutorials or discussion groups, research and preparation for assignments.

See also Unit timetable information

Chief examiner(s)

This unit applies to the following area(s) of study

Clinical pharmacy
Pharmacy practice

Prerequisites

PGC5001 (VCG5011)

Prohibitions

VCG5021