Elective Didactic Courses
The elective didactic (PHMY) courses currently offered by the School of Pharmacy are described below. In general, higher course numbers indicate courses with important prerequisite requirements, and are designed for later years of the curriculum. Prerequisites for most electives include consent of the instructor and the student’s advisor. Some electives are offered in either the fall or spring semesters, and some are offered both semesters. Refer to the class schedule when making course selections.

PHMY 501—Oncology Pharmacotherapy (2)
This course allows students to engage in advanced discussions of oncology therapeutic topics and increase their knowledge about the etiology, clinical presentation, and management of various solid and hematological malignancies. Students will become more effective in identifying, preventing, and managing the complications related to cancer and cancer therapy. Course content expands and builds upon oncology topics covered in ISAT and includes additional topics such as pediatric solid tumors, bone marrow transplantation, and oncologic emergencies. Therapeutic topics will be reinforced with the discussion of actual patient cases. Students will participate in journal clubs and mock patient counseling sessions.

PHMY 502—Medication Safety in Health Care (2)
This course is designed to provide students in the health care professions (medicine, nursing, and pharmacy) with a basic introduction to medication safety. The course will introduce the student to important issues and current concepts in medication safety. Medical error will be distinguished from unintended drug effects such as adverse events and side effects. The student will also learn key strategies related to identifying, reporting, managing, and preventing medication errors, as well as current legislative and professional issues.

PHMY 503—“I Can Cope”: Pharmacy Educators in Pain Management (1)
This course prepares pharmacy students to serve as facilitators in the “I Can Cope” series developed by the American Cancer Society. Specifically, students will be taught how to facilitate a session on the module titled “Relieving Cancer Pain.” Pharmacy facilitators will lead a class concentrating on the health challenges to wellness and quality of life imposed by cancer pain. An overview of pain, medical treatments to control pain, and nonmedical strategies are presented to help empower participants and assist them to begin building a repertoire of self-care techniques.

PHMY 504—Issues In Health-System Pharmacy (1)
This course will familiarize students with issues faced by health-system pharmacy. The student will learn the background and substance of the issues and approaches used in dealing with them. Areas covered will include medication use safety, automation/drug distribution, financial issues/outsourcing, communications, organization of corporate entities, leadership/management, and quality of services. Prerequisites: Phase I Experiential Learning Rotations.

PHMY 510—Advanced Educational Opportunities (1)
This elective program provides students interested in graduate school or research careers with knowledge and information about various advanced educational opportunities in the curriculum. Aspects of careers which require advanced study are described by professionals in those career areas and by students currently enrolled in them. The course offers diverse perspectives on goals, training, functions, settings, and opportunities in research in pharmaceutical sciences and pharmacy practice.

PHMY 511—Diabetes Disease State Management (1)
This course will review the pathophysiologic changes associated with diabetes mellitus (Types I and II, impaired glucose tolerance, and gestational diabetes), nonpharmacologic management (nutrition and exercise), pharmacologic management, complications of diabetes mellitus, principles of education (children, adolescents, adults, and geriatrics), continuous care (skin and foot care, OTC product selection), blood and urine monitoring, special population considerations (children, adolescents, geriatrics, visually impaired patients), psychosocial aspects of diabetes (dealing with diagnosis, developing support strategies, and adherence to regimens), and how to set up a diabetes-focused practice. Prerequisite: Fourth-year status.

PHMY 512—Case Based Management of Infectious Diseases I (1)
PHMY 513—Case Based Management of Infectious Diseases II (2)
These courses provide third- (PHMY 512) and fourth-year (PHMY 513) students and students in the Nontraditional Pathway with an opportunity to critically examine the clinical decisions made in the management of patients with infectious diseases. During the first course, students will review the therapeutic decisions made in the care of a patient encountered during an experiential course and review the literature relevant to those decisions. During the second course, students will present a case discussion, including a thorough review of the standard of care and the literature support for the decisions made. Prerequisites: Third-year status or PHNT 545 and 546 Therapeutics I and II.

PHMY 514—Teaching Preparation and Skills (1)
The course is a basic introduction to instructional activities in general and teaching at the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy in particular. The first two days consist of a series of presentations on teaching-related topics. The instructors will develop a short interactive lecture on diabetes management to demonstrate each aspect of the teaching and presentation development process. There will be frequent in-class activities requiring student interaction. During these, students will begin to develop their own topic for presentation on the last day of class. Teaching Preparation and Skills is an unusual modular course originally developed for nontraditional PharmD students. It was intended to improve their ability to make in-class presentations. However, since the ability to create and deliver a lecture or seminar is fundamental to many students and faculty members within the School, it is now frequently attended by graduate students and new faculty members. In addition to teaching participants how to make presentations in general, it focuses on using presentation technology available in the School of Pharmacy.

PHMY 516—Geriatric Imperative (2)
The Geriatric Imperative minimester is a five-day interdisciplinary course open to all University of Maryland students during the first week in January. The course presents a wide range of information on the health and well-being of older adults through clinical, research, and policy presentations. Course content will be conveyed through lectures, panel discussions, team and case presentations, role play, videotapes, and site visits. Students will be required to write an in-depth paper on a subject pertaining to geriatrics/gerontology within two months of completing the didactic portion of the course.

PHMY 517—Geriatric Pharmacotherapy (2)
This course provides advanced discussion of the geriatric diseases and different presentations of disease and responses to therapy. A case-based approach expands on previous geriatric coursework and allows students to apply material to different patient-care settings. Journal club and drug information questions are utilized to illustrate concepts. Prerequisite: Third-year status.

PHMY 518—Drug Abuse Education (1–3)
Practice and training in the dissemination of drug information, especially drug abuse information to the public, are linked to the activities of the Student Committee on Drug Abuse Education (SCODAE). Students complete a 10-hour training session, observe community education programs presented by SCODAE, present several programs, and prepare a written report on a timely topic in the area of chemical dependence.

PHMY 519—Controlled Drug Delivery (1)
This course aims at optimizing drug therapy by delivering bioactive agents at specific sites or at specific rates to patients.

PHMY 524—Marketing (3)
Marketing introduces methodologies for identifying changes in the organization’s marketplace and adapting to them. The course uses the market-orientation concept, emphasizing customer needs, total integration of the firm, and the profit potential to examine the marketing process, and in doing so, will use pharmacy-based examples. Prerequisite: PHAR 544 Patient-Centered Pharmacy Practice and Management II.

PHMY 525—Comprehensive Pediatric Care (2)
Comprehensive pediatric care is a 2-credit course offered in the spring semester for third- and fourth-year students in the entry-level Doctor of Pharmacy program. This elective course is designed to prepare students to optimize medicine use in pediatric patients in the ambulatory or institutional setting. The course will cover cognitive and physiological development, psychosocial factors affecting medicine use, pharmacist role, regulatory issues, and pediatric pharmacotherapy for various disease states.

PHMY 526—High Impact Presentations (2)
This elective course is designed to prepare students to be well-prepared and competent presenters and to clearly and succinctly convey their information through oral and visual presentations. Students will be required to describe the process used to prepare an effective presentation, select and develop the appropriate audio visual aids to enhance a presentation, assess the quality of a presentation and the quality of the skills used by the presenter, and plan and deliver a presentation that meets the needs of a specific audience, using appropriate audio-visual enhancements, and techniques to maximize learning and retention of educational content.

PHMY 529—Special Group Studies (1-5)
An omnibus course permitting experimentation with new or different subject matter and/or instructional approaches.

PHMY 537—Clinical Aspects of Drug Dependence (2)
This course familiarizes students with the clinical aspects of chemical dependence. Special emphasis is placed on the pharmacology of commonly abused psychoactive substances and the role of pharmacological supports in the treatment of addiction.

PHMY 539—Special Projects (1–3)
(Repeatable up to 12 credits) Independent investigations consisting of library or laboratory research, seminars, or other assignments appropriate to the problem investigated.

PHMY 541—Introduction to the Poison Center (1)
This course provides students the opportunity to observe and be involved in a clinically oriented pharmacy practice setting early in their education. Students learn about the Poison Center’s operation and resources and the potential for pharmacist participation in this area of patient care. The course consists of discussion sessions, activities in the Maryland Poison Center, role playing, and laboratory sessions focusing on toxicology resources and communication skills. Students present cases on a home-managed and a hospital-managed overdose.

PHMY 545—Educational Theory and Practice (2)
To achieve optimal health outcomes, pharmacists must educate patients and health care professionals regarding the appropriate use of drugs. However, few pharmacists have had formal training in instructional design or methods. This course will consist of small group discussion sessions, journaling, and a self-directed learning project. Readings will be assigned prior to each small group discussion session and will focus on educational learning theory, instruction design, and instruction methods. Discussions will be highly interactive, and there will be no formal lecturing. Each discussion session will be two hours in duration. Participants will keep a “learning journal” with their personal reflections following each discussion session. The self-directed learning project must culminate in a learning event of at least one hour in duration. Prerequisites: Completion of PHPC 532 Longitudinal Pharmaceutical Care I and permission of the coursemaster.

PHMY 548—Women’s Health (3)
Using a case-based and highly interactive instructional techniques, students will explore a broad range of health issues that women face throughout the life cycle as well as further develop their skills to evaluate patient-specific data, make appropriate therapeutic decisions, and design drug therapy monitoring plans. Specific issues/disorders to be discussed will include contraception, infertility, vaginal disorders, menstrual disorders, gestational diabetes, eclampsia, menopause, and osteoporosis. Prerequisites: Completion of PHAR 554 and PHAR 555 ISAT I and II.

PHMY 551—Recent Advances in Pharmacology (1)
The objective of this course is to present advances in pharmacology and toxicology. Sessions emphasize experimental and clinical findings and their interpretation and significance in relation to basic and applied aspects of pharmacology and toxicology. Attention is also given to experimental design and methodology of the studies in question.

PHMY 552—Pharmacology and Aging (1)
This course presents advances in our understanding of variations in drug response in the aging population. The course is designed to give students an appreciation for the basic physiological and biomedical changes which normally occur with aging and how these changes relate to altered pharmacodynamic and pharmacokinetic responses following drug administration. Basic and clinical pharmacologic studies are used to support the conclusions presented.

PHMY 553—Consumer Education Program for Older Adults (2)
This course trains students to educate the elderly about drugs and drug-taking. Students benefit from the didactic and applied aspects of the course, since they must first learn about the special needs of the elderly and then actually interact with the elderly both in large groups and one-on-one.

PHMY 556—Advanced Pharmacology I (2) PHMY 557—Advanced Pharmacology II (2)
This course expands and extends the pharmacology material learned in the required courses PHAR 536 and 546. The course format is the discussion of assigned topics and review of original papers in a two-hour, weekly session. These sessions include graduate students in the pharmaceutical sciences.

PHMY 561—Advanced Therapeutics Seminar (3)
An advanced course dealing with complex drug therapy decision-making, using case presentations and current literature. Requires active student participation in resolution of therapeutic controversies.

PHMY 562—Clinical Pharmacokinetics (2)
The course will extend the student’s knowledge of clinical pharmacokinetics, develop the student’s skills in providing pharmacokinetic drug monitoring during PharmD rotations, and prepare students for post-graduate work in clinical pharmacology research. Emphasis is placed on the application of these principles to clinical practice and clinical research.

PHMY 563—Pharmacotherapeutic Issues in the Critically Ill Patient (2)
This course is an elective seminar for students interested in critical care pharmacotherapy. Topics include a broad scope of disease states and drug issues frequently encountered in an ICU setting. Presentations will identify the pharmacologic aims and controversies in the management of a particular topic, while simultaneously underscoring the complexities of drug therapy in the critically ill patient, which may lead to untoward reactions or suboptimal care.

PHMY 574—Pharmacotherapeutics I (2)
PHMY 575—Pharmacotherapeutics II (2)
Pharmacotherapeutics is a course in advanced therapeutic decision-making which parallels the therapeutic topics offered in the Integrated Science and Therapeutics modules during the third year of the curriculum. The course requires students to formulate therapeutic decisions based upon case materials and emphasize the process of decision-making in the presence of multiple patient and agent variables. As the number of cumulative therapeutic topics increases, the complexity of the decision-making increases. Students are expected to incorporate data from the primary literature as part of the therapeutic decision-making process.

PHMY 576—Advanced Topics in Pharmaceutics (2)
This course will allow students to become familiar with advanced topics in pharmaceutics. Different topics will be presented in the form of lectures, group discussions of original papers, and laboratories, and will include bile acid sequestrants, drug dissolution, production methods for inhalation aerosols, metered-dose inhaler formulation, tablet compaction, pellet drug delivery, critical formulation and manufacturing variables, oral drug absorption, and novel chemical approaches for targeted drug delivery. Prerequisites: PHAR 535 Pharmaceutics or concurrently enrolled in Pharmaceutics or consent of coursemaster.

PHMY 577—Pharmacoeconomics (3)
This course is designed to familiarize students with the economic structure, conduct, and performance of the pharmaceutical industry. The course includes such topics as prices and profit in the industry, productivity, costs, economies of scale, innovation, economic effects of regulation, and cost benefit and cost effectiveness analysis of pharmaceuticals. Prerequisite: One undergraduate course in economics or permission of instructor.

PHMY 581—Research Pathway Seminar (1)
The objective of this course is to provide an overview of pharmaceutical and other health- and life-scienceoriented research by attending research seminars and participating in the discussion of those seminars.

PHMY 583—Management of Health Care Systems (3)
This course will familiarize students with the different practice settings in integrated health systems ranging from community pharmacies to managed care organizations and hospitals. Areas that will be covered include pharmacy benefits management, disease state management, information management, models of integrated health systems, management of the therapeutic process, negotiating and networking, and the response of pharmacy practice settings to the changes in these systems. Prerequisites: PHAR 523 Ethics in Pharmacy Practice, PHAR 544 Patient-Centered Pharmacy Practice and Management II, PHPC 570 Safe Medication Order Processing in Community Pharmacy Rotation, and PHPC 571 Safe Medication Order Processing in Institutional Pharmacy Rotation.

PHMY 584—Patient Counseling (2)
Students will learn key information about the Top 200 prescribed drugs in the United States. The content will focus on information that needs to be communicated to patients concerning their therapy. This material will reinforce what students have learned in other courses. In addition, students will become familiar with new product-specific material that has not been addressed in the curriculum. Periodic quizzes will assess student knowledge. The Pharmacy Practice Laboratory will also be used to videotape students as they counsel simulated patients.

PHMY 585—Perspectives of Mental Health (2)
This course provides students with an understanding of the mental health system, discusses controversies that may face the practicing pharmacist, familiarizes students with tools and techniques for studying psychopharmacologic agents, and helps to define pharmacists’ roles in providing mental health care.

PHMY 586—Journal Club I (2)
This elective course is abilities-based, structured in a journal club format, and parallels second-year courses. The elective provides a forum in which students can practice and enhance oral and written communication skills, literature retrieval, and evaluation activities, while learning new information relating to ongoing required coursework. Students select articles from the primary, basic, or clinical research literature and lead discussions of the articles. The discussions include study design, informational content, and how the articles relate to and enhance the topics of courses the students are concurrently taking or have taken. Prerequisite: Second-year status. (Course offered spring and fall semesters.)

PHMY 586—Journal Club II (2)
This elective course is abilities-based, structured in a journal club format, and parallels third-year courses. The elective provides a forum in which students can practice and enhance oral and written communication skills, literature retrieval, and evaluation activities, while learning new information relating to ongoing required coursework. Students select articles from the primary, basic, or clinical research liter-ature and lead discussions of the articles. The discussions include study design, informational content, and how the articles relate to and enhance the topics of courses the students are concurrently taking or have taken. Prerequisite: Third-year status or fourth-year status with permission of the coursemaster. (Course offered spring and fall semesters.)

PHMY 587— Mammalian Anatomy and Histology (2)
This advanced-level elective course provides students a structured opportunity for a major dissection of two mammalian species. Students observe the location and structure of all organs of the body and their relation to each other. Working in teams at their own pace, students systematically dissect an adult, preserved cat, and a pregnant rat. Students also perform a directed study of prepared, selected histology slides of many tissues and organs. Prerequisite: PHAR 524 Human Biology II and/or consent of coursemaster. (Course offered spring and fall semesters. Students cannot take both PHMY 587 and PHMY 590.)

PHMY 590—Fetal Pig Dissection (1)
This elective course provides students the opportunity to dissect a mammalian species. Students observe the location and structure of all organs of the body and their relation to each other. Working in teams at their own pace, students systematically dissect a near-term fetal pig. Prerequisite: PHAR 514 Human Biology I and/or consent of coursemaster. Students cannot take both PHMY 587 and PHMY 590. (Course offered spring and fall semesters.)

PHMY 591—Principles and Practice of Modern Compounding (2)
Using a combination of lectures, problem-solving workshops, and skill-building laboratories, this course teaches the appropriate extemporaneous compounding of drug preparations in pharmacies. Prerequisite: PHAR 535 Pharmaceutics.

PHMY 592—Clinical Toxicology (2)
The clinical toxicology course will provide students with an overview of the clinical manifestations, assessment and treatment of poisonings with common drug, chemical, and biological agents. The format includes lectures by faculty members, case discussions led by students and a laboratory experience. Course evaluation includes the discussion sessions, the antidote laboratory and open book midterm and final exams. Prerequisite: Third-year status. Note: This course is highly recommended as preparation for PHEX 552 Poison Information Rotation.

PHMY 593—Care of the Terminally Ill (2)
This course prepares students to interact with terminally ill patients through increased understanding of the social and psychological aspects of death and dying as well as the palliative pharmacotherapeutic management of these patients. Prerequisite: Third-year status.

PHMY 595—Complementary and Alternative Medicine (2)
This course explores the principles behind the botanical information and folklore uses of herbal remedies and provides an overview of alternative medicine as it is currently emerging. Alternative medicine therapies are also discussed: their rationale, safety, validity, and current therapeutic use.

PHMY 596—Nonprescription Medicine (3)
This course is designed to thoroughly familiarize the student with OTC medications. Emphasis will be placed on the pharmacology of these drugs, potential disease states in which the drugs will be used, self-administration techniques, consideration in selecting a product, triage issues, and patient counseling. Prerequisite: Third-year status.

PHMY 597—Bereavement (1)
This course addresses the skills and knowledge needed to serve bereaved individuals: the theory of attachment, loss, and grief, as well as how to effectively interact with the bereaved.

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