Reflective Journal

Reflective Journal: Pharmacology

Lina Grmia

[Name of the Institution]

Reflective Journal: Pharmacology

Introduction

This paper highlights general concepts in the field of pharmacology and principles of safe medication in the context of CNO practice standards. I will discuss these concepts in the scenario of my teaching plan, the relevant strategies that I will use to teach patients and essential information about pharmaceutics that my patients will need to know. Therefore, as a practical nursing student, I will provide a complete guideline about pharmacology and relevant concepts in this respective paper that will extensively increase my patients in knowledge.

Discussion

Teaching Plan of Pharmacology for Patients

Pharmacology is a discipline of medical sciences that deals with the study describing the effect of drugs and medications on the life of humans, animals and other living creatures (Adams et al., 2018). There are numerous general concepts and principles which are an essential part of the field of pharmacology. However, while creating a teaching plan to educate my patients, I will choose few but important general concepts which they can easily understand to know about their medications.

At first, I will include information about pharmacy in my teaching plan. Patients need to be made aware that the drugs they are being prescribed can be bought from pharmacy outlets. The discipline of pharmacy is a study of a collection of drugs and medications along with their compounding and dispensing to patients (Zgarrick et al., 2016).

Along with providing the knowledge of chemists, I also plan to teach my patients about Immuno Pharmacology. It includes instruction for patients about the effect of drugs on an immune system of a living organism and how antibodies react to medicine when a patient takes a medication dosage (Harding et al., 2017).

Another important concept of pharmacology that will feature in my teaching plan is Pharmacotherapeutics. It is a domain which will give extensive knowledge to my patients about what drugs will prevent the patient from having a particular disease and how the patient will treat that disease if it befalls on him/her.

Teaching Strategies

For the execution of my teaching plan, I would require effective strategies to make my patients get the maximum benefit from what they are taught. Some of the strategies will be discussed in this section that can make my teaching plan for patients a success.

Firstly, effective use of technology is an excellent tool for helping patients absorb the pharma knowledge and in quick succession without any additional training costs. With the help of technology; patients can check avail all features of e-medicine. Those features may include monitoring the price of medicines or match the patient's current situation with the possible symptoms online of a particular disease.

An all-season alternative to technology is written material. Another teaching strategy is that patients can be handed over written prescriptions that give details regarding their personal information (including name, contact number, disease, etc.), nature of their disease, required medicinal doses and information regarding any follow-up visit. These all strategies should be based upon the patient's ability to learn about drugs. I would analyze the different strengths and weaknesses of patients so that I can teach them according to their level and skill-set.

These strategies would although not perfect the medicinal properties of drugs, but it can surely make patients get fully aware as to what medicine they can choose when they are caught up by a disease. The modern teaching methodologies would also increase my skill-set in teaching that can benefit my patients in the long-run.

Important Information about Medications for Patients

Patients can access important advice and instructions about usage of medications on CNO Practice Standards. It also elaborates guidelines for us, i.e., nurses/teachers as to what precautions we have to take while dealing with patients. College of Nurses of Ontario (CNO) has developed these standards to ensure the complete satisfaction of patients (Laschinger et al., 2016). For this purpose, CNO aims to have qualified nurses who can provide safe medication practices.

I plan to connect the above-described concepts with the principles of safe medications as described in CNO practice standards. This is because only pharma knowledge is not sufficient for the rehabilitation of the patients. They also need to execute the learned information in the right area to recover quickly from their illness. Therefore, the patients need to know for how they can implement my teachings for safe intake of medications while avoiding their adverse reactions.

Moreover, the patients also need to realize that medications from well-known chemists and companies are also an essential factor to consider. This is because there are pseudo companies who produce drugs of the same formula with different or even the same brand name (Adams et al., 2018). Consequently, instead of getting relief, patients get sicker as the medications are not authentic. Therefore, the patients need to be alert regarding these fake companies and always should prefer to buy medicines form well-renowned pharmacy.

Conclusion

In conclusion, I would say that planning is an essential part pre-requisite to any task. Thus while going through a first clinical experience as a nurse, it is necessary to build up a teaching plan for a beginner nurse like me. While the teaching plan suggests what to do; the teaching strategies suggest how to do? So along with the modern teaching methodologies, it is essential that I follow CNO Practice Standards in parallel to the strategies described above. In this way, my patients will effectively learn about pharmacology in the easiest way possible; this will be an enormous success for me both as a nurse and as a teacher.

References

Adams, M., Holland, L. N., Bostwick, P. M., & King, S. L. (2018). Pharmacology for nurses: A pathophysiological approach. Pearson Canada Incorporated.

Harding, S. D., Sharman, J. L., Faccenda, E., Southan, C., Pawson, A. J., Ireland, S., ... & Bryant, C. (2017). The IUPHAR/BPS Guide to PHARMACOLOGY in 2018: updates and expansion to encompass the new guide to IMMUNOPHARMACOLOGY. Nucleic acids research, 46(D1), D1091-D1106.

Laschinger, H. K. S., Zhu, J., & Read, E. (2016). New nurses’ perceptions of professional practice behaviours, quality of care, job satisfaction and career retention. Journal of nursing management, 24(5), 656-665.

Zgarrick, D. P., Alston, G. L., Moczygemba, L. R., & Desselle, S. P. (2016). Pharmacy Management: Essentials for All Practice Settings, 4e.