Priya Shenoy: Collaboration in the Curriculum

— Priya Shenoy, RN, MLIS

As the Pharmacy and Science Librarian, I get to work very closely with a group in the Pharm. D. Curriculum that focuses on “Pharmacy Skills and Applications” (PSA). This PSA series is a 6-semester course series in the Doctor of Pharmacy (Pharm. D.) program that helps students build on different pharmacy skills such as taking blood pressures, blood sugars, prescription counseling, medication calculations, communicating with patients, administering insulin, intravenous medication administration, sterile environment practices, drug compounding, drug information searching, and many others. Each semester builds upon the previous semester and takes into account chronologically where students are in their education as well as the whole pharmacy curriculum. PSA is taught in a team format with one person coordinating that particular semester’s efforts for that particular year.

In terms of my position, I work collaboratively with the CPHS Pharmacy professors on the “drug information” component of the pharmacy curriculum. This consists of being able to correctly identify where to find information in different library resources and then interpret that information so that the best answer can be found for that particular patient. I work on teaching in the program as a guest lecturer to help provide research skills and training for students in searching out of multiple databases, understanding online information literacy, using AMA citation, evaluating mobile medical apps, and how to use the library website. I also help by creating exam questions, creating biweekly homework assignments, and having meetings with students as necessary, under the guidance of the individual coordinating that particular student’s course.

For the first year in the program (P1), the first semester emphasis of my drug information teaching is on understanding different print drug information resources. During the second semester the essential and specialized online library pharmacy and health sciences databases are covered.
In their second and third years (P2 and P3 respectively) we delve more specifically into federal government websites of importance and searching PubMed, a database of biomedical literature abstracts. We also focus on how to use the controlled vocabulary (MeSH) within PubMed and how to utilize it when searching for research.