Course puts new twist on complex topic

Health care is a complex topic, but now an old class with a new twist might help sort it out for student pharmacists.

The course, “Medication Use and the U.S. Healthcare System,” required for second-year PharmD students, has been restructured and now includes guest lecturers from a wider array of disciplines.

Starting in Fall Semester 2009, Jason Hurwitz, assistant research scientist, and Ivo Abraham, professor in Pharmacy Practice and Science, are bringing in COP professors, research scientists, executives and others to present. Some will appear in person and others will speak through a videoconference. All of the lectures are open to the UA COP community, and most will be filmed and put online for student access.

“(The videoconference) enables us to expand our pool of lecturers to people who can’t otherwise be present at the College of Pharmacy,” says Hurwitz. “For example, we’ve had someone from Belgium speak, someone from Pennsylvania give a videoconference lecture … It’s just nice when you have experts on the topics come and talk about those topics. They know it better than you do.”

Hurwitz wanted to give students a working knowledge of the U.S. healthcare system, including how drugs are developed and the social and economic factors that impact legislation.

“Neither Ivo nor I are actually pharmacists,” he says. “He’s a nurse by training, and I’m a psychologist by training, which is kind of interesting. It reflects the interdisciplinary nature of what these students are going to be exposed to.”

The class delves into some major topics: how a drug is approved and developed, financing, medication errors and disparities in health care among populations. For presentations later in the semester, students will chose a topic of interest and give their own recommendations to improve the situation.

The class relies heavily on the Desire2Learn (D2L) Web system, an online resource for teaching and learning tools. The students are able to take tests on the site and participate in cyberspace discussions on controversial topics such as physician-assisted suicide.

“The lectures give you a nice breadth,” Hurwitz says, “and I think these additional activities give you a nice depth.”

Photo above: Professor Dan Malone (left), a recent guest presenter, with Jason Hurwitz

Posted Oct. 14, 2009