Introducing Emily Wiener, completing her Doctor of Pharmacy degree, here to fill us in on all things pharm.
According FOAMedstudent.com’s poll, pharm resources are in high demand amongst med students. As a pharmacy student, I’ve definitely had to dive into the depths of the internet to find the pharmacy FOAM out there. In order to make the navigation a little easier on the rest of you, I’ve compiled some of the great clinical resources I’ve come across.
For general drug information which is available without a subscription, globalrph.com is a site with numerous drug resources. They have charts and tables of drug classes (i.e. statin equivalency chart), drugs broken down by disease states, normal lab values, and renal dosing information. It isn’t the most frequently updated site and therefore isn’t the most reliable for guideline based medicine. Another wealth of information is empr.com, it includes drug monographs and drug charts. In order to access some of the features of the site you do need to create a free account. It’s a great site to use to stay up to date on new drug approvals, newly generic drugs, and drugs in the pipeline.
Meded101.com is a blog containing information about common (or commonly forgotten) drug-drug interactions, polypharmacy, and basic med info. The moderator of the site is also quite active on Twitter (@mededucation101) with frequent tweets about med interactions or things to keep in mind when selecting meds.
There are a number of blogs which regularly post pharmacy relevant evidence based medicine topics. Geared for ambulatory care pharmacists, iforumrx.org (@iforumrx) regularly has peer-reviewed posts mostly about chronic disease state management. Academic Life in Emergency Medicine (www.aliem.com, @ALiEMteam) has a variety of emergency medicine related topics including peer-reviewed relevant pharmacy/toxicology posts, tagged as “Tox & Medications”. empharmd.blogspot.com is a blog which provides a pharmacy point of view on all things emergency medicine. For cardiology EBM posts, HeartMeds has an extensive archive which is well tagged for easy to find posts sorted by drug. One of the contributors of HeartMeds has his own EBM blog called The Unit (www.reedrx.com/unit, @brentnreed) which is mostly heart-failure specific.
Finally, don’t forget perhaps the greatest pharm related resource, your clinical pharmacist. Ok maybe I’m a little biased but the dynamic interactions with your clinical pharmacist (or pharmacy student) are great learning experiences for all parties involved and have been shown to improve patient outcomes.
Please feel free to post your favorite pharm FOAM in the comments section.
Emily Wiener is finishing up her final month of her Pharm.D. degree at University of Maryland in Baltimore, Maryland. Following graduation, she will be pursuing a PGY1 residency at Sinai Hospital Baltimore. Her interests include emergency medicine, HIV, and pharmacy education. An avid #FOAMed supporter, she can be found @PharmDEMily.
Follow Emily @PharmDEMily
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