General Pharmacology

GENERAL PHARMACOLOGY

Molecular Basis of Drug Action

A. The student shall be able to describe specificity of drug action, bonds, receptor types and effector mechanisms.

B. The student shall be able to state theories of drug action and discuss theoretical LDR curves.

C. The student shall understand the differences between different kinds of drug agonists and antagonists, and be able to describe the concepts of drug affinity, efficacy, and desensitization.

Pharmacokinetics

A. The student shall recognize methods of absorption of drugs in regards to membrane structure, membrane transport, and routes of administration.

B. The student shall describe distribution of drugs with consideration of volume of distribution, plasma proteins, distribution in the central nervous system, and passage across the placenta.

C. The student shall be familiar with the routes of drug excretion and drug clearance.

D. The student shall be able to note various types of drug metabolism, including the P450 system.

E. The student shall describe the time course of drug action including kinetics of elimination, plateau principle, and maintenance and loading doses.

Normal & Abnormal Responses to Drugs

A. Toxicity and Measurement of Drug Response

1. The student shall be able to note log-dose response relationships in graded responses, such as a normal distribution, and the measurement of potency and safety of drugs.

2. The student shall be able to describe various aspects of drug development including animal and clinical trials that are used to determine toxicity and drug responses.

B. Allergic and Idiosyncratic Responses

3. The student shall be able to describe all of the five types of allergic responses and give examples of each.

4. The student shall be able to appreciate idiosyncratic responses based upon drugs susceptible to impaired metabolism, changes in sensitivity, and novel effects.

Pharmacokinetics POPS Clinical Problem

A. The student shall distinguish graded and quantal dose or concentration-response curves., and recognize individual variability as the basis of quantal curves.

B. The student shall designate a "desired therapeutic concentration" from such curves.

C. The student shall distinguish first-order and saturation kinetics.

D. The student shall compare and contrast a drug's half-life (t1/2), elimination rate constant (kel), apparent volume of distribution (Vd), and clearance (Cl) in terms of the first –order one-compartment model. Use those quantities to compute loading and maintenance dosages to generate initial (CO) and steady-state (Css) drug plasma concentrations, respectively.

E. The student shall apply the plateau principle to compute concentrations of drug in plasma during approach to plateau or steady-state.

F. The student shall define bioavailability, and state the consequences of slow or delayed absorption of a drug on peak and trough concentrations during a dosing interval.