WEEK 8 REFLECTION
Student Name
1. How have your attitudes changed about selecting appropriate medications
based on patient presentation and unique patient factors?
After going through this course, it made me realize how many different factors I would need
to consider based on the patient’s background and ethnicity in order to provide the best
therapeutic option for this patient. Not all patients have same medical background or are of
same risk factor to qualify for certain therapy. Hence, it will take more than resources for me
to figure out a system to be able to select the appropriate medication tailored to each patient.
2. How confident do you feel about selecting an appropriate pharmaceutical
agent for a patient with a specific diagnosis in the primary care setting?
I do not feel completely confident in knowing the initiating dosage, calculating for children
and geriatric patients per each medication. However, the course has prepared me well to know
what is the first-line drug therapy choice for certain diseases.
3. What resources are needed, if any, to help you feel more confident?
I believe a guideline for women, geriatric, children, and comorbidity risk patients would be
helpful in selecting the appropriate drug choice for the patient’s condition. If there is a easy to
read chart as there is for antibiotic for appropriate bacterial/viral agent, it would be efficient in
utilizing in actual practice.
4. How has your understanding changed about determining the therapeutic
effects, adverse responses, and side effects of drug therapy?
My understanding of therapeutic effects, side effects associated with the medication reviewed
are still the same as when I had learned in during my undergraduate and in practice. However,
to put it in to a perspective of a provider that is prescribing with full knowledge of the patient’s
medical history and active medication changed how I view drug therapy and its association
with other risk factors differently.
5. Reflect on your preparedness to write appropriate prescriptions according to
evidence-based practice guidelines. What resources are needed, if any, to
help you feel more prepared?
I believe in terms of writing a prescription based on evidence-based practice is solid.
However, to know the duration of therapy, implementation of changes in the
dosage/frequency will need to be studied in further detail.
