High School Pharmacy Activity

[bezoar12]

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Hi all,

I was hoping to get some ideas for a project a student group is doing at our school. We are going to a local high school to speak to a "health careers class" (10th-12th grade) of approximately 20 students and want to do some sort of interactive, "fun" activity that demonstrates an aspect of the profession of pharmacy. Does anyone have any good ideas?

Some things I was considering:

1) a simple, safe, non-messy, cheap compounding activity (not sure what meets all of these criteria though)

2) a patient case with medications the students may be familiar with

3) ???

Any thoughts or suggestions would be appreciated; or has anyone done anything like this in the past? Thanks!!!

 

[njac]

they compound chapstick when our school does high school outreach

 

[Quiksilver]

Hi all,

I was hoping to get some ideas for a project a student group is doing at our school. We are going to a local high school to speak to a "health careers class" (10th-12th grade) of approximately 20 students and want to do some sort of interactive, "fun" activity that demonstrates an aspect of the profession of pharmacy. Does anyone have any good ideas?

Some things I was considering:

1) a simple, safe, non-messy, cheap compounding activity (not sure what meets all of these criteria though)

2) a patient case with medications the students may be familiar with

3) ???

Any thoughts or suggestions would be appreciated; or has anyone done anything like this in the past? Thanks!!!

I dunno about compounding something simple - the easiest are solutions which are no more exciting then dissolving NaCl in water. and then adding some syrup to it. although typically you try to use as little water as is chemically possible, by the rules of saturation.

Which I guess along the lines, you can do some fun stuff and present on Gatorade and electrolytes. Why they are important to have, why the need exist for them, the dangers of electrolyte imbalances. I think thats at the level of a high schooler. for example, what are the effects of too much salt (NaCl), too much potassium (K). What happened to people in the holocaust when they were rescued, why is it a danger to feed them rapidly? what are the effects of each electrolyte and why are they important.

or what is so special about iodized salt. why does it exist. why do we need iodine in diets, what happens with too much/little. what are symptoms. how much do we need. drugs that affect the uses for iodine in the body and the diseases

a medication case is tough because there are a lot of variables... even if the medications are familiar. Although a good idea with anyone in high school is to talk about the dangers of commonly abused substances and what they do to you when you take them incorrectly.

I think these topics are a pretty good start, but whatever you do, make sure that people know that pharmacy isn't just about counting pills. There are many many great fields out there in pharmacy that don't end in Walgreens or CVS