Evaluation of pharmaceutical lifesaving skills training oriented pharmaceutical intervention

Background: Many pharmacists are participating in team-based medical care in emergency hospitals. Therefore, there is a desperate need to improve the education system. In the present study, we provided a “pharmaceutical lifesaving skills training” to the students in their fifth and sixth year of the pharmaceutical school and evaluated the program’s impact on the students’ learning and confidence in their ability to perform pharmaceutical interventions for emergency patients. Methods: We conducted a pharmaceutical lifesaving skills training program with 12 participants who were in their fifth and six year of pharmaceutical school. We prepared a fictional scenario in which a patient with cardiac arrest has been rushed into a hospital. We measured the participants’ level of knowledge of pharmaceutical lifesaving procedures and participants’ confidence to perform pharmaceutical interventions before and after the training session. Using the data obtained from type II quantification method, we examined what elements in the content of the pharmaceutical lifesaving skill training attended by pharmacy students will affect the students’ confidence to perform pharmaceutical interventions. In addition, using the correspondence structural analysis, we examined which sections of the content of the pharmaceutical lifesaving skill training should be improved in the future. Results: When we evaluated the level of knowledge acquired in pharmaceutical lifesaving skills training, the post-training overall correct answer rate was significantly higher than the pre-training overall correct answer rate. And also, level of participants' confidence to perform pharmaceutical interventions similarly increased after pharmaceutical lifesaving skill training. The influence degree graph indicates that the items likely to have a major impact on the participants’ confidence to perform pharmaceutical interventions was “Selecting medicine”. According to the correspondence structural analysis graph based on the questionnaire survey, one item identified as an improvement required was “Selecting medicine”. Conclusions: Our high-performance patient simulator-based lifesaving skills training program not only increased the participants’ understanding of the training content but also increased their confidence in their ability to perform pharmaceutical interventions. Therefore, the pharmaceutical lifesaving skills training program we developed will contribute to the education of emergency care pharmacists who can perform pharmaceutical interventions for emergency patients

Administration of Kampo medicine through a tube at an advanced critical care center

In emergency and critical care medical centers, tube administration is employed for patients who have difficulty swallowing oral drugs owing to decreased consciousness or mechanical ventilation. However, tube clogging due to drug injection is a concern. We compared the crushing method with the simple suspension method for the passage of amlodipine, an antihypertensive drug, in combination with rikkunshito, which has been used to treat upper gastrointestinal disorders such as functional dyspepsia and gastroesophageal reflux in emergency and critical care medical centers, to ascertain the effect of Kampo products on the passage of other drugs during tube administration. When the crushing method was employed, poorly water-soluble solid products were formed, while a uniformly dispersed suspension was obtained using the simple suspension method. In addition, the passage rate of amlodipine through the tube was 64% and 93% in the crushing and simple suspension methods, respectively, thereby indicating that the simple suspension method provided more favorable than the crushing method. The results of this study suggested that the passage rate of amlodipine for patients who received Kampo products concurrently was higher when the simple suspension method was used, and an appropriate drug amount might well be able to administered to patients using this method

Direct Measurement of the

A cross section measurement employing a direct 16O detection method for the reaction energies from Ecm = 2.4 to 0.7 MeV is planned at Kyushu University Tandem Laboratory (KUTL). To perform this experiment and to obtain quantitative information about the cross section to within an error of 10%, we have developed several instruments, including a blow-in type windowless gas target, a recoil mass separator and a RF-deflector. The measurements at Ecm = 2.4 and 1.5 MeV have been performed with these instruments. For measuring at Ecm < 1.2 MeV, a hybrid detector employing both, an ionization chamber and a silicon detector was developed to reduce the carbon backgrounds more efficiently. The oxygen ions were clearly separated from carbon background by using the energy deposit in the ionization chamber. Experiment of Ecm = 1.2 MeV was performed and the cross section was obtained

Direct Measurement of the 4He(12C, 16O)γ Total Cross Section Near Stellar Energies

A cross section measurement employing a direct 16O detection method for the reaction energies from Ecm = 2.4 to 0.7 MeV is planned at Kyushu University Tandem Laboratory (KUTL). To perform this experiment and to obtain quantitative information about the cross section to within an error of 10%, we have developed several instruments, including a blow-in type windowless gas target, a recoil mass separator and a RF-deflector. The measurements at Ecm = 2.4 and 1.5 MeV have been performed with these instruments. For measuring at Ecm < 1.2 MeV, a hybrid detector employing both, an ionization chamber and a silicon detector was developed to reduce the carbon backgrounds more efficiently. The oxygen ions were clearly separated from carbon background by using the energy deposit in the ionization chamber. Experiment of Ecm = 1.2 MeV was performed and the cross section was obtained

Involvement of DNA-dependent protein kinase in down-regulation of cell cycle progression.

The catalytic polypeptide of DNA-dependent protein kinase (p470) is encoded by the gene responsible for murine severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID) devoid of DNA double-strand break repair and V(D)J recombination. Here, we have characterized the role of p470 in cell proliferation using SCID mice and the cell lines. In accord with DNA histogram patterns, SCID cell lines (SD/SD-eA and SC3VA2) expressing extremely low level of DNA-PK activity grew faster than a normal mouse cell line (CB/CB-eB) and SC3VA2 complemented with human p470 gene (RD13B2). In regenerating liver after partial hepatectomy, de novo DNA synthesis determined by [(3)H]thymidine incorporation started at 30h in C.B-17/Icr-SCID (SCID) mice and at around 36h in C.B-17/Icr (C.B-17) mice. Compared with normal cells, SCID cells contained slightly higher levels of transcripts of cyclin A, cyclin E, B-Myb and dihydrofolate reductase, which are regulated by E2F-1. E2F-1 playing a key role in G1- to S-phase progression was phosphorylated in vitro by DNA-PK. Importantly, the E2F-1 promoter transcriptional activity in SCID cell lines (SD/SD-eA and SC3VA2) was 4-5-fold higher than that in CB/CB-eB and RD13B2. These results suggest that p470 is involved in down-regulation of cell cycle progression through E2F-1-responsible genes

Response function of a 6Li loaded fast neutron coincidence spectrometer

We have investigated the response of a 6Li loaded neutron coincidence spectrometer to MeV neutrons. The spectrometer has a structure consisting of three 6Li-glass scintillators in a liquid organic scintillator BC-501A, which can detect selectively neutrons that deposit the full energy in the BC-501A using a coincidence signal generated from the capture event of thermalized neutrons in the 6Li-glass scintillators. The efficiency and response functions were measured using 4.7, 7.2 and 9.0 MeV mono-energetic neutrons, and were compared with those derived by combination with both neutron transport calculation in the spectrometer and scintillator response calculation. The calculation results showed fairly good agreement with the measured ones. Finally, the response function matrices were obtained for 1 to 10 MeV neutrons