Thank You Michael Crichton

First, I would like to point out that whoever scheduled a total of ten different examinations over the course of a three-week period needs to be informed that cruel and unusual punishment is prohibited by the Bill of Rights. I suspect that by the end of this week I will have lost what little sanity I have left.

But that's not what I'm posting to say--complaining about examinations may be part of student life, but there are more entertaining remarks that I can make. So here are a couple funny highlights from recent work shifts.

A girl calling me for a refill on her oral contraceptive pills expressed sincere belief when I told her that we didn't have the item in stock and that it would not come in until Thursday. The particular product recently went generic and there are still a few holdovers (despite the fact that they're made by the same company), but either way supplies of the brand name are not as numerous as they once were on our shelves.

I believe her exact phrasing was "wow, you guys can run out of drugs?" No, silly me, let me go open up the extradimensional pharmaceutical holding chamber where we keep the infinite supply.

But why reference Michael Crichton?

Those of you who have seen the movie Jurassic Park may recall a particular scene in which the power is out and most of the main cast is sealed in one of the bunkers, hiding from the rampaging dinosaurs. Attempting to formulate a plan, game warden Robert Muldoon brings up "the lysine contingency," a totally ridiculous safeguard thereafter explained by Samuel L. Jackson's computer programmer character:

"The lysine contingency - it's intended to prevent the spread of the animals is case they ever got off the island. Dr. Wu inserted a gene that makes a single faulty enzyme in protein metabolism. The animals can't manufacture the amino acid lysine. Unless they're continually supplied with lysine by us, they'll slip into a coma and die."

Of course, this makes absolutely no sense. Lysine is an essential amino acid, meaning that it cannot be synthesized by the human body--it must be consumed in the diet. In fact, no animals "manufacture" lysine. And as it is common enough--contained in many plants and all meat products--the "lysine contingency" isn't much of a plan at all.

I mostly mention this because I had trouble refraining from laughing the other day when a woman was desperately searching for L-lysine supplements. I should've asked her if she needed it to keep her pet dinosaur alive.

An Open Letter to my Pharmacy School

Please quit sending me emails about the veterinary therapeutics course. Last I checked, it was illegal for non-vets to prescribe medications for non-human animals. What, exactly, is the point of studying how to treat diseases in animals when animals are considered to be outside both our scope of practice and the scope of practices of physicians we work with? In my state, at the bare minimum, pharmacists aren't even allowed to sub brand-generic on vet prescriptions. What's the point?

I will note that I get a lot of calls from a local vet's office when I'm at work, but most of the time the questions being asked are about drug product availability; sometimes pet meds come in dosages or concentrations that human meds don't, and it can be difficult to approximate the doses. My cat's bladder infection was treated with what amounted to an Augmentin 50 mg/5 mL suspension; the least concentrated form available for humans is 200 mg/5 mL, so trying to dose the cat would've been practically impossible considering that she was getting about one milliliter of the stuff anyway. And I feel really bad for the family at our pharmacy who apparently splits the tiny-ass 2.5 mg Norvasc tablets in half.

Actually, the most confusing veterinary puzzle is the cat who uses an albuterol inhaler. If I ever see the owner at the store I'm going to ask how in the world that works.

Optimizing Your Caffeine Intake

This article by Chris Chatham of Scienceblogs' Developing Intelligence is worth a look. It's a fascinating read, and if you're a caffeine enthusiast like I am, it might even be practical knowledge!

I predict my intake of the world's favorite stimulant will increase significantly over the course of the week--with five exams coming up between Tuesday and Thursday, there're going to be a lot of cups of coffee and cans of No Fear finding their way down my gullet.

Intergalactic Conquest

As any student in the 21st century knows, the proper way to celebrate finishing a huge research paper during finals week is to procrastinate regarding the rest of your work. In my case, that means it's time to binge on a brilliant 4X strategy game.

Hopefully finals won't produce another week-long posting hiatus, but we'll see what happens!