Continuing Professional Development For Pharmacists: Learning About Hepatic Disorder

This Continuing Professional Development for the role of pharmacist

Reflection:

1. What do you need to learn?

2. How is this learning relevant to the safe and effective practice of pharmacy?

3. Why do you think that this learning may be useful for your future practice?

4. What have you learnt?

5. Give an example of how what you have learned could be applied to patient care in your future role as a pharmacist

6. What have been benefits of these activities to your learning?

After reading the entire literature on Hepatic Disorder, I have come to know about the morphological and physiological aspects of the organ. I have highlighted towards several topics, which I need to analyze in details. I need to understand about the effective strategies facilitating towards minimizing hepatic disorders from the patients of England. I need to understand the effect of Hepatic Disorder and its consequences among the patients who are suffering from it. I need to know about the strategies undertaken by the recent medical practitioners to reduce (or eliminate) the effect of hepatic malfunctioning. I need to learn about the various consequences of hepatic disorder. This would be in relation to the viral agents and the development of malignancies.

I need to learn about the strategies for managing the complications of hepatic disorder as it would be a powerful factor. Understanding the patient evaluation strategies along with acquiring information about liver assessment would be the primary objective of the study. Keeping a track on the drug intervention along with the therapeutic interventions for enhancing the health outcomes would be my target purpose for the research. Thereby developing the drug for gaining a productive outcome in the future would be the primary objective of the study.

Learning about Hepatic Disorder helps in understanding the rationale regarding the drastic consequences of several common disorders. Hepatic Disorder leads to several consequences such as Jaundice, Pale Stools, Dark Urine, Spider Naevi, Bruising & Bleeding, Encephalopathy, Portal Hypertension, Splenomegaly, Varices, Gynaecomastia, Pruritus and Ascites. Thus, assessing the factors leading to such disorders along with the carnal knowledge would help to minimize these effects to a huge extent. The various drug assessments such as Luxative therapy for preventing Hepatic Encephalopathy (HE), Rifaximin, L-Ornithine-L-Aspartate (LOLA), Spironolactone (for treating hepatic ascites) are involved. Thus identifying the high-risk factors of hepatic disorders leading to various consequences highlights towards the involvement of safety and effective practice of pharmacy

 Hepatic disorder in an individual tends to highlight several drastic consequences. This includes Jaundice, Pale Stools, Dark Urine, Spider Naevi, Bruising & Bleeding, Encephalopathy, Portal Hypertension, Splenomegaly, Varices, Gynaecomastia, Pruritus and Ascites. Thus, assessment of the liver function at the early stage of the disease symptom needs to be analysed efficiently. Liver Assessment includes routine Liver Function Tests (LFTs), which includes Bilirubin, Aspartate Transaminase (AST), Alanine Transaminase (ALT) and Gamma Glutamyltransferase (GGT).

These effective learning therapies are effective in promoting safe and effective practices in the pharmacy.

I think that learning about hepatic disorders along with its medical practices are crucial for future practice because this is one of the most common causes of death in England. Hepatic disorders are mainly accustomed due to improper lifestyles. This includes excessive alcohol consumption, obesity and infections due to hepatitis B and C. Thus, minimizing these consequences would be an efficient and challenging issue for a medical practitioner. The medical practitioners along with the several medical research teams would definitely target in minimizing these consequences in the future.

Reflection:

Apart from the factor of Hepatitis, Liver malfunction is also caused by malignancies. Hence, screening for hepatic disorder would also help in developing research studies for cancer in the future.

Moreover, the cost of medication for the hepatic disorder is quite high as compared to the other treatments in England. From the literature review, I have learnt that the disease cost for hepatic malfunctioning is £460m per year (on an average scale). Thus, reducing the effects of hepatic disorder would not only be philologically effective, but it would be adequate help regarding financial aspect of an individual.

Thus, reducing these factors would contribute to develop a hepatic disorder free environment in the future.  

I have discovered a brief review of the pathophysiology of the liver disease. The literature initiates with the basic structure and function of the liver. The organ being 1.4 kg (for women) and 1.6 kg (for men) is mainly divided into two loves. The entire structure is made up of hepatocytes, which is the metabolic cells of the liver. The liver has the function of metabolism (carbohydrates, proteins, fats, thyroxine, bilirubin, insulin, various medicines, hormones, aldosterone and vitamins. The organ synthesizes plasma proteins, clotting factors, cholesterol, glucose, bile, amino acid and urea. Storage of fat-soluble vitamins, glycogen, regulating the blood sugar and providing immunity are the associated functions of the liver.

Furthermore, I have learnt about the two types of liver diseases, i.e. Acute Liver Disease and Chronic Liver Disease. When the onset of the symptoms does not prevail for six months, then the patient is subjected to acute liver disorder. On the other hand, the patients suffering from more than six months are accustomed to Chronic Liver disease.

There are various causes of liver diseases which are observed by me while studying the literature. One of the primary causes is consumption of alcohol. This is supported by the occurrence of viral infection. It is estimated that Hepatitis A, which spreads via oral fecal causes hepatic disorders to a great extent. Hepatitis B causes chronic disorder despite having the effective vaccination. The transmission mainly occurs via infected blood and bloody fluids. Hepatitis C is a blood-borne virus, which is primarily transmitted through injectable drug usage.

Apart from the viral infections, the hepatic disorder can also be encountered due to genetic imbalance. This includes the Haemochromatosis, Wilson’s disease and Alpha-1 Antitrypsin Deficiency, which results to severe liver malfunctions within an individual.

Hepatic disorders are also attained by autoimmune effects, which affect young women between the ages of 20-40. Primary Biliary Cirrhosis, which causes accumulation of small and intrahepatic bile ducts, results in the formation of fibrosis and cirrhosis. Malignancy is also associated with the hepatic disorder largely.

As I have learnt that many medicines cause liver dysfunction, this leads to the development of direct toxicity of the metabolites. It was estimated that patients with the pre-existing hepatic disorder are not associated with increased risk of Drug-Induced Hepatotoxicity (apart from metho-methotrexate and sodium valproate). The drugs induce all forms of acute and chronic hepatic disorders. Hepatic disorder in an individual tends to highlight several drastic consequences. This includes Jaundice, Pale Stools, Dark Urine, Spider Naevi, Bruising & Bleeding, Encephalopathy, Portal Hypertension, Splenomegaly, Varices, Gynaecomastia, Pruritus and Ascites. Thus, assessment of the liver function at the early stage of the disease symptom needs to be analysed efficiently. Liver Assessment includes routine Liver Function Tests (LFTs), which includes Bilirubin, Aspartate Transaminase (AST), Alanine Transaminase (ALT) and Gamma Glutamyltransferase (GGT). Thus developing drugs against such disorders would be the key objective for the pharmacist. The drugs need to be developed at an effective rate, which would broaden the spectrum to an enormous extent.

Hence, being a pharmacist I would insist on withdrawing every drug that has the possibility to develop hepatic malfunctioning. This would be an effective therapy for the patient, which would reduce the catastrophic phenomenon to a huge extent.

The activities undertaken from the literature context would highlight towards the medical intervention associated with hepatic disorder. The background highlighted towards the possible outcomes of over-consumption of alcohol, thus providing a social awareness statement for the community. Moreover, the awareness of various drugs susceptible to developing hepatic disorders is simultaneously highlighted in this context, which needs to be precisely monitored before public usage.

Apart from these, the literature focused towards the benefits of the drugs, which are associated towards minimizing/eradicating the consequences of hepatic disorders from the community. As observed previously, the hepatic disease is one of the most common factors of England causing thousands of deaths every year. Hence, understanding these risk factors would help in minimizing these factors and thereby saving these affected patients to a huge extent.

Thus study provided a social awareness by interrelating the effect of alcohol consumption on hepatic disorders. Apart from the social awareness factor, the study also correlated towards the various factors of hepatic disorder such as malignancy and viral pathogens. Thus, it provided a room for further research regarding this interrelationship status to develop effective therapies and drugs against these issues. This is one of the biggest benefits related to the study, which signifies towards a better future for tomorrow.