MCP-worcester Therapeutics class

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greatdeals225

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Hi to all MCP-Worcester pharmacy students!!

A lot of people have heard how horrible MCP Worcester's therapeutics class is, all the independent work the student has to go through to pass the class... blah blah blah...

To all whom have taken or have heard anything reliable about the therapeutics class, can you give us some insights? how horrible is it? is it do-able?
what exactly is covered in that class?

any help is appreciated, as many of us are still looking into that school.
 
Ok, therapeutics….it’s rough, very rough. Not to brag, but I have always been a fast-learner and have a great memory, but this class is totally kicking my ass. I don’t say this to discourage you, but just to warn you of what lies ahead—I wish I had known. It’s not the material so much as the shear volume of it and the lack of time. For example, we have class next Tuesday when we return (therapeutics is 4 days a week for 2 hours each)—the topic is hypertension. We have several patient cases to complete before we come to class. This involves reading a book chapter and perhaps some other articles (some profs assign extra articles or chapters from other books), learning the material well enough to discuss it in class, analyzing the patient cases, and then answering all the case questions. It’s important to have everything complete because they will just call on individuals (I seem to get called every single day, and I know people who have never been called!) or learning groups to come down and answer the question.

So once Tuesday’s HTN lecture is done, we go home and prepare for the next day’s lecture on an entirely different topic. This vicious cycle never ends and almost every day is a brand new topic (occasionally, there will be 2 days for 1 topic). Trying to learn everything about a single disease state and how to treat it in 2 hours? Not gonna happen. It’s ridiculous.

It takes hours and hours to complete the material for a single lecture. Even if this was the only class we had, I still don’t think I would have enough time. All my other classes seem to fall by the wayside until the weekend when I can play catch-up. We’re supposed to work in our learning groups to complete the material, and we sit with our group in class because sometimes we get called on as a group. I don’t know of anyone who actually works with their learning group, but it is essential to know people to split the work with. I work with some friends and we divide it up so we each only have to answer 1/3 or 1/4 of the questions. It’s important to have people you trust, though, because you don’t want to get called on and give a really wacky answer.

I don’t know…maybe this is how therapeutics is taught at other schools—I don’t really have a basis for comparison, but it definitely sucks. I also wonder if it’s worse at a 3-year school. I have a sharp memory, but I’m barely hanging on to stuff I learned 4 weeks ago. At this point, I definitely wonder about my future abilities as a pharmacist because I feel like I’m not learning/retaining anything. Maybe students everywhere feel this way.

Hopefully it will be better for you because you know what you’re facing.
 
Therapeutics is a class that can not simply be memorized. If you are planning on memorizing the material, you will be very much disappointed come exam time. Therapeutics needs to be understood in order to be applied.

At Butler we don't have learning groups for lecture but we have case study groups that meet once a week on Fridays from 2-5. During this time we are given a patient case and are required to come up, within our group, a therapeutic plan for the patient. Occasionally we have assignments that need to be completed outside of class, in that case our group makes an effort to meet and complete the assignment.

Therapeutics is, essentially, the basis of your pharmaceutical education, everything you do from this point on out will involve therapeutics. The material can, at times, be overwhelming but when you think about it, therapeutics is a subject you will use for almost your entire career!!

I feel ya!! Required reading after required reading, suggested reading after suggested reading; all of it can be soooo over whelming at times but I just don't usually let it bother me. The way I see it, and the way I deal with it, is I think of it this way; I am learning the material at this point in order to better serve my patients. What better time do you have to learn the material then now!?!??! Often times the topic has a lecture packet including notes from the lecturer; additionally there are approximately 4 or more packets of supplemental material which maybe treatment guidelines or articles recently published on the topic.

Our therapeutics class meets Tuesdays and Thursdays from 12-1:15pm and on Fridays we have case study. Additionally, we have therapeutics quizzes every Friday on material that has been recently covered. Having the quizzes really helps because it means that you have to keep up with the material in order to do well on the quizzes.

Study early and study often, keep up on the material and, I would suggest, study with a group so that you are sure you understand and can explain what you've just learned. If you can explain something to someone else then can almost be sure that you have the material down! Try to understand the material that is being presented instead of simply memorizing because I am almost sure that your exams will have case presentations on them in which case you will be able to apply what your were taught and often times memorization is simply not enough.



Just study hard, be able to understand, teach, and apply what you've read and you'll be set!!

Best of luck!
 
Ok, therapeutics….it’s rough, very rough. Not to brag, but I have always been a fast-learner and have a great memory, but this class is totally kicking my ass. I don’t say this to discourage you, but just to warn you of what lies ahead—I wish I had known. It’s not the material so much as the shear volume of it and the lack of time. For example, we have class next Tuesday when we return (therapeutics is 4 days a week for 2 hours each)—the topic is hypertension. We have several patient cases to complete before we come to class. This involves reading a book chapter and perhaps some other articles (some profs assign extra articles or chapters from other books), learning the material well enough to discuss it in class, analyzing the patient cases, and then answering all the case questions. It’s important to have everything complete because they will just call on individuals (I seem to get called every single day, and I know people who have never been called!) or learning groups to come down and answer the question.

So once Tuesday’s HTN lecture is done, we go home and prepare for the next day’s lecture on an entirely different topic. This vicious cycle never ends and almost every day is a brand new topic (occasionally, there will be 2 days for 1 topic). Trying to learn everything about a single disease state and how to treat it in 2 hours? Not gonna happen. It’s ridiculous.

It takes hours and hours to complete the material for a single lecture. Even if this was the only class we had, I still don’t think I would have enough time. All my other classes seem to fall by the wayside until the weekend when I can play catch-up. We’re supposed to work in our learning groups to complete the material, and we sit with our group in class because sometimes we get called on as a group. I don’t know of anyone who actually works with their learning group, but it is essential to know people to split the work with. I work with some friends and we divide it up so we each only have to answer 1/3 or 1/4 of the questions. It’s important to have people you trust, though, because you don’t want to get called on and give a really wacky answer.

I don’t know…maybe this is how therapeutics is taught at other schools—I don’t really have a basis for comparison, but it definitely sucks. I also wonder if it’s worse at a 3-year school. I have a sharp memory, but I’m barely hanging on to stuff I learned 4 weeks ago. At this point, I definitely wonder about my future abilities as a pharmacist because I feel like I’m not learning/retaining anything. Maybe students everywhere feel this way.

Hopefully it will be better for you because you know what you’re facing.

Thanks DrugDealer,
Your reply does help me to learn more about your school. I think that your school needs to change the way they teach therapeutics.
 
wow.. thanks for the replies!!! are there any other students at other schools that would like to share their experience on therapeutics class so that we can compare? how it is taught, is it discussion style or lecture style?
 
P3s and P4s in other schools... Please share your experiences of therapeutic classes in your school. I want to see how other schools teach and deliver the crucial subjects in pharmacy.
 
P3s and P4s in other schools... Please share your experiences of theraputic classes in your school. I want to see how other schools teach and deliver the crucial subjects in pharmacy.

might need another thread for that.... what'd you think? different therapeutics classes in different schools, styles...
 
UF has 6 semesters of therapeutics.

Year 1 - 1 semester to get your feet wet. It is not in depth, but will cover a different disease state each week. You have "verbal defense" once a week. You are called on at random and must answer a question about the disease that was covered in lecture.

Year 2 - 2 semesters to learn every disease state, every drug for that disease, every dose of that drug, every bacteria, what drugs work on that bug and what is the correct dose for that bug (same drug might be dosed differently for another bug). You have case studies with a series of questions for weekly verbal defense sessions. Each exam covers about 1,200 pages of notes.

Year 3 - 2 semesters (one is accelerated into 8 weeks). This has no lectures and has different areas. There are days that are "main case" where you work in groups of 4. One is group leader, one is researcher, one is note writer and one is proofreader. You all do everything together, though. About 2 days before class, a case is posted from an actual hospital chart. These patients have multiple disease states and are usually on 15 meds. The 1st day of class you start with the patient interview. Ten students are called randomly and you have 3 minutes to ask questions. After that, you have clinician interview. Again, students are called to interview the doctor, nurse or whoever they throw at you. They usually answer "I don't know" to your questions. You now have 1.5 days to come up with a therapeutic plan. During class on that day, you turn in your SOAPE note at the beginning of class, then verbal defense starts. They try their best to shred you. You can be asked anything about any drug, even if you did not choose that drug for the patient. It's extremely difficult.

Intermingled with main cases are self-care cases. Each of these covers a different common disease and the OTC meds that can be used to treat it. You need to know everything about these meds. During class, you will have mock counseling sessions with the instructors pretending to be the patients.

You also have two community cases and two kinetic cases. The community cases will call on you to treat a patient in the pharmacy. You have 3 minutes to explain the use of a glucose meter, etc. If you don't cover all the points in 3 minutes, you get a crappy grade. Kinetics cases are patient cases with multiple drug interactions. You'll be called on to explain mechanisms of those interactions, what drug could be used instead, etc. These also kick you in the butt with difficulty.

Year 4 - Before you go out on rotations, you are assigned a research topic and a question topic. My research topic is hyperuricemia and gout. My question topic is hypertension. By the time we return from rotations, we must know everything about these two topics. The research topic requires an in class presentation where you teach everything about that topic, present a patient, etc. Whoever has been assigned your topic as a question will grill you on it. You must be ready to go each day of class. They call on you randomly. I start this class on March 12. I don't know how it will be.
 
Thanks DrugDealer,
Your reply does help me to learn more about your school. I think that your school needs to change the way they teach therapeutics.
You may as well just quit now if you can't handle what drug dealer posted...its like that virtually everywhere...
 
You may as well just quit now if you can't handle what drug dealer posted...its like that virtually everywhere...

Hey,
Keep your bad advice for yourself. How do you know that " its like that virtually everywhere"? We are trying to find a right pharmacy school for us. If the teaching style for therapeutics is the same at other schools, I would adjust myself to complete my PharmD. Do not tell other students to quit.
 
Hey,
Keep your bad advice for yourself. How do you know that " its like that virtually everywhere"? We are trying to find a right pharmacy school for us. If the teaching style for therapeutics is the same at other schools, I would adjust myself to complete my PharmD. Do not tell other students to quit.
yeah, you really need to quit. Pharmacy isn't for you...
 
Therapeutics will be your main class along with Medicinal Chemistry and Pharmacology. Therapeutics is where you learn everything you would want to know about every almost all diseases along with the various drugs used to treat those diseases. You typically cover 1 disease state including pathophysiology, epidemiology, drugs etc per day. It's a lot of material but once you start taking your classes you will quickly figure out how much time you need to commit to each class.

Don't get all worked up over nothing, you're still applying to schools! Like Caverject has said, Therapeutics is typically taught in the same manner everywhere!! Even when you get to Therapeutics it isn't a class to be worried about. If you read the material and are able to understand and apply what you have learned to a patient case, you'll be fine. It is one of the most interesting classes in pharmacy school!!!
 
yeah, you really need to quit. Pharmacy isn't for you...

Hey,
It is none of your business. I hope that I won't have to work with this unprofessional person in the future.
 
Therapeutics will be your main class along with Medicinal Chemistry and Pharmacology. Therapeutics is where you learn everything you would want to know about every almost all diseases along with the various drugs used to treat those diseases. You typically cover 1 disease state including pathophysiology, epidemiology, drugs etc per day. It's a lot of material but once you start taking your classes you will quickly figure out how much time you need to commit to each class.

I couldn't agree more with you
 
For the 2nd year and 1st semester of the 3rd year at USC:
- lectures are given
- case is given and student is to soup the case
- case conference with group and a resident to discuss the case
- quiz is given after case conference

For the 2nd semester of 3rd year, the main difference is that there's no resident during case conference. In addition, instead of taking a quiz based on the lectures, each student is given an hour to read a new case and to answer specific questions based on the case (e.g. would you give drug a and why and is there drug drug interaction). Then, the professor goes over both cases.
 
We are on the quarter system here...and we take 5 quarters of therapeutics starting the 3rd quarter of our 1st yr.

We pretty much seem to be learning it like most other schools. Lectures then we have a workshop every other week for 2 hrs where we work on patient cases and write SOAP notes in our university assigned small groups. We present the case as a group and discuss it with the other groups in our workshop room. Our workshop facilitators are all clinical professors. Overall, I think it works pretty good.
 
I'm glad to hear from other students at other schools that Therapeutics is typically one disease state per day. I guess the main difference for us at MCPHS-Worcester is that it's at a faster pace of 4 days a week. How often is everyone else meeting?

You need to be prepared for the fact that you will be doing most of the work yourself--we don't have any traditional lectures. We just teach ourselves the material before we come to class, and then we discuss it and can ask any questions we have.

I agree with a previous poster that discussing the topics with friends and classmates is crucial. This will show how well you understand the material; it will reinforce what you do know and point out what you don't yet know. My friends and I like to take turns asking each other questions on the material. Besides learning all the little details, this really helps me connect the material in new ways and see the big picture.
 
this is getting more and more interesting...
 
Just a quick comment- Don't choose a school based on one class. There is always one ****ty class at every school and you just need to be prepared for it. Pharmacy School is not supposed to be easy, MCP tries to challenge you. I'm not particularly looking forward to having to deal with the stress and all of the work of thereapeutics next year, but I certainly would not base my entire opinions about this school just on that class. Look at what else is important too
astevens
 
Therapeutics classes are not only a series of classes but they usually last 2+ years and are the most important classes you will take in pharmacy school.
 
If you are interested in "Clinical Pharmacy", you're going to be using Therapeutics on a day-to-day basis. Additionally, if you are going to be working in "Community Pharmacy" you are going to be using Therapeutics on a day-to-day basis. Either way, you are going to have to take the class, learn the material, and eventually apply what you have learned to real life patients.

Our Therapeutics class meets twice a week for 1 hour and 20 minutes. On Friday we meet for 3 hours, from 2-5pm, during that time we take our weekly quiz and then we break up into case conference groups. During case conference we are presented with a patient case regarding a topic we have recently covered in lecture. We have the remainder of the time to look over the case and to come up with a therapeutics plan. After all groups have come up with a therapeutic plan we each write our plans on the board and we go over them as a group receiving input from our fellow students as well as our professors. We are often times asked questions in regards to why this drug compared to this drug, why this route as compared to this route etc. Furthermore, students are required to do patient care plans on an individual bases. In order to get an A in case study you have get 3 high passes on your care plans. To get a B in case study you have to get 2 high passes on your care plan, and to get a C in case study you have to get 1 high pass in your care plan. Care plans are typically due to your case conference leader the following Monday. On of our profs had been at UCSF and I guess we use the same care plan format they use.

In addition to our regular care plans required to pass case study, we have to do special care plans called MDS's during our first semester of therapeutics. An MDS or Multiple Disease State assignment is essentially a timed care plan. We are given a patient case in which we are presented with a patient that has multiple disease states that need to be treated. The catch is that we must COMPLETE a care plan in 1 hour and 30 mins. These are then graded by our instructors and returned. There were a few students in my class that did not pass the MDS and were given an incomplete for case study for the semester. When we head back to school on Tuesday they will be given another chance to try and pass the MDS with another patient case.

In addition to this we were required to do either an oral case presentation or a patient counseling for our case study preceptors. We were given a patient case 1 week in advance and we were informed of whether we would have to do a patient counseling on meds or whether we would be required to give an oral case presentation (Care plan). The catch was for the patient counseling you essentially had to work up the case by doing a care plan in order to figure out what meds you wanted to use and thereby what meds you would counsel on. You had to present your patient counseling to 2 preceptors and 2 of your peers, all of which were expected to ask you questions regarding either you case presentation or your patient counseling.
 
I'm glad to hear from other students at other schools that Therapeutics is typically one disease state per day. I guess the main difference for us at MCPHS-Worcester is that it's at a faster pace of 4 days a week. How often is everyone else meeting?

4 days a week of lectures, plus another class of verbal defense. Your MCPHS-Worscester is not at a faster pace. The class moves fast everywhere. You'll get through it, though we lose a few students every year. Between therapeutics, pharmacology, med chem, pharmacokinetics, and statistics all at once - it's hard to find time to study for all of them.
 
I took therapeutics a long, long time ago & I don't teach it, so perhaps I'm not the best person to be making a comment.

However, the change in "style" of teaching at this point in your education along with the class itself, IMO, is the crucial difference. At this point - about your 3rd year (or the equivalent at the 3 yr schools)....you should be more independent & require less "spoon-feeding".

Likewise, you should need less direction when it comes to exactly what needs to be read & what does not. You should by this time have developed a more independent nature when it comes to what you require to learn & how you learn it.

Not everything will be in straight lecture format. In fact, when I took it, only some of it was in that format style. If I read everything which was "suggested" I'd still be reading. Also, during that year & in that class, my exams were all verbal - there were no written exams at all. So - they were very "free form" - the professor could tell if I had a handle on what I had learned or was I just trying to memorize the list of ..... whatever. Likewise...the exams themselves became learning encounters which gave me confidence for 4th year.

I'm not saying this particular course is good or bad or this is an excellent or horrible school - I have no specific knowledge of it. However....as far as the maturing process of a student...you should be able to get yourself to this point at which you no longer are presented with a syllabus at the beginning & have set examinations. What you put into it will be what you get out of it. Yes...it takes lots of time to learn therapeutics - but its much, much harder when you're no longer a student to have to learn it on your own - and you will have to do that!

I graduated before HIV & AIDS were every recognized as diseases....now... if I didn't know that I could indeed learn this disease process - which is actually a multitude of diseases, on my own.....my education would have stopped in 1977. The point is - you must at some point learn to educate yourself because healthcare will not stop at your graduation!

Good luck!
 
UT Pharmacy

P2 Year is all about Pharmacotherapy for 3 straight semesters (Fall, Spring, Summer).

Our PT is divided into modules (HTN, CHD, Antimicrobics, Hormones, etc....)

Fall: PT1a - Allergy, Asthma, Immunology Modules
PT1b - Cardivascular (Divided into modules - HTN, CHD, etc)
Spring: PT2a - Antimicrobics
PT2b - Antivirals (HIV) & Oncology
PT2c - Hormones (OCPs)
Summer: PT3a - Neurological Disoders
PT3b - Pain/Opiods

For each module, we have specialists of the field teach each aspect. Ex. PHDs/Clinical Profs teaches the Pathophysiology of the disease, someone teaches the medicinal chemistry of the drugs, and a clinical professor teaches the clinical applications. We spent a good amount of time on each module and exams are usually every week on each module.

Our class is also split up into groups of 10 for Pharmacotherapuetics Lab where we're given a patient case each week to go over and create a therapeutic plan (SOAP Notes). Each semester gets tougher and during the summer PT Lab, we're expected to present a patient case to our professor and know everything about the patient. We get hammered with questions on treatments, disease state, etc during these presentations.

In addition to PT, we have other courses like ethics and pharm administration but the bulk of P2 year is Pharmacotherapeutics.

Overall, it's a great teaching and learning set-up.
 
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