Handbook

Pharmacology is the study of drug action on the body. Students will explore how drugs affect the body and gain insight into why drugs are used to treat certain pathological conditions and why drugs used to treat the same condition can have different outcomes and affect patients' differently (eg. side effects, interactions or genetics). Using case studies this understanding of drugs can then be used to by students to justify changes, evaluate and monitor a patients' medical regimen to ensure that they are benefiting from the drugs they are prescribed and not harmed by those same drugs. The decisions and recommendations that can be made become more restricted and complex when considerations have to be made based on: the patients age, the number of drugs a patient is taking, the number of medical conditions they have been diagnosed with, care plans of other health professionals in the patient's care team, changes in their clinical state (eg. renal or hepatic failure) or they are pregnant or breastfeeding.