Medicines Information Assignment
Assigned: During the first workshop
Deadline: by 7pm on 09/12/16 via Turnitin
Please note that work will not be accepted after the deadline (as directed in the School policy). Feedback will be provided electronically within 15 working days of submission.
Your assignment:
You are a Medicines Information Pharmacist at Bigtown Royal Infirmary.
Your assignment is to reply to a letter written by a local prescriber (General Practitioner (GP) or hospital doctor). Their letter details a query about a specific patient.
Learning Objectives
By completing the assignment, students will show that they can:
• Consider a clinical scenario for a specific patient.
• Display good written presentation skills and an awareness of appropriate language when providing medicine information.
• Demonstrate personal knowledge in an area of pharmacy practice.

Guidance
(see also the links on Blackboard in the Medicines Information Assignment folder)
Before you start your letter –
see the good example available on Blackboard.
• Imagine you are a prescriber awaiting advice to treat your patient.

Our over-riding marking criteria is whether it is useful to the enquirer.
• We expect 15-20 hours of work for this assignment.
• If your letter is longer than 2 pages of A4 – your mark will be zero.
• Font and size. Use Arial 12 Do not save space by using an unacceptably small font that cannot be easily read.
• Be clear and concise in order to fit your material into the allowed space.
• You should begin to consider the query as soon as you receive it, and ask your group tutor for advice if you are struggling. It reflects poorly on Pharmacy students if they are asking for help the week before the deadline.
• Try to differentiate between “must include” and “would like to include”. Do not spend half of your letter reviewing the pharmacology of drug A if your question asks for something else such as whether A is better than B.
• Start by checking your BNF, Summary of Product Characteristics (SPCs) on medicines.org.uk. Consider any national guidance e.g. from the NPSA (key functions have recently transferred to the NHS Commissioning Board Authority) or NICE.
• As a general guide, consider whether any of the following are relevant to the query:

• Is the indication appropriate?
• Are there any relevant cautions or contraindications?
• Do any of the current drugs cause side effects?
• Are there any relevant interactions (food-drug or drug-drug)?
• Is there any national guidance recommending an action or recommending that a drug is inappropriate?
• Why not show your letter to a friend? They will tell you if any points are unclear and can spot spelling/syntax errors. This is not plagiarism, but what qualified pharmacists do to ensure quality. This is essential if English is not your first language.
• Look at the marking guidance. The TPs are not trying to catch you out, but they are looking for consideration of certain key points within the query.
• Spelling and grammatical errors will reflect badly on your credibility and the content of your letter. As does the use of capital letters for generic drug names, incorrect spelling of drug names and poor use of apostrophes.
• To help you when writing your letter, please see the links on Blackboard. These include a link to the United Kingdom Medicines Information (UKMi) workbook which is used to train Pharmacists on how to answer queries appropriately (see pages C.4 to C.11 which relate to writing letters).

References
• It is appropriate to quote references in your letter so the prescriber can gain further information if needed. This also gives credibility to your answer. Make sure your references are reputable and appropriate:

Do not cite Wikipedia or patient websites. Quote journals rather than on-line sources if available.
• Any references cited in the text should follow the Vancouver convention.
• A Vancouver referencing guide is available on how to correctly reference different sources of information.

See the introduction section of the coursebook. It is also available on Blackboard (in the Resources folder and the MI assignment folder – yes, it is that important we have included it twice!).
Avoiding plagiarism
Every year there are a number of students who deliberately or inadvertently commit plagiarism and receive “0” as a result. Some students then fail the module because they have insufficient coursework marks.
The copying of text from other sources is considered a serious offence and will be referred to the School Investigatory Panel. Any plagiarism is obvious when submitted via Turnitn
Vancouver Referencing Guide
1. Books:

Author/Editor (if it is an editor/editors always put (ed./eds.) after the name). Title. Series title and number (if part of a series). Edition (if not the first edition). Place of publication (if there is more than one place listed, use the first named): Publisher; Year of publication.
E.g.: Sexton J, Nickless G, Green C. Pharmaceutical care made easy. London: Pharmaceutical Press; 2006.
2. A chapter in a book:

Author of the chapter. Title of the chapter (followed by) In: Editor (always put (ed./eds.) after the name). Title. Series title and number (if part of a series). Edition (if not the first edition). Place of publication (if there is more than one place listed, use the first named): Publisher; Year of publication. Page numbers (use ‘p’ before the page numbers)
E.g.: Wood J. Metabolic and endocrine disease in the elderly. In: Armour D, Cairns C (eds). Medicines in the elderly. London: Pharmaceutical Press; 2002. p195-200
3. The BNF:

Joint Formulary Committee. British National Formulary. [edition number] ed. London: British Medical Association and Royal Pharmaceutical Society; [year of publication].
4. Printed journal articles:

Author. Title of journal article. Title of journal. Year of publication; Volume number (Issue number): Page numbers of the article
E.g.: Wright D. How to help if a patient can’t swallow. The Pharmaceutical Journal. 2011; 286: 271-274
5. Journal articles: (Use paper copy if available before using electronic copy)

Author. Title of journal article. Title of journal. Year of publication; Volume number (Issue number): Page numbers of the article
Available from: URL (uniform resource locator, internet address) (Date of access)
E.g.: Hatcher J, Gilchrist M. Invasive fungal infections: causes and diagnosis. Clinical Pharmacist. 2011;3:171-176. Available from: http://www.pjonline.com/cpd/cp201106_fungal_infection_causes (accessed 29th June 2011)
6. Web pages and websites:

Author/Editor. Title. Available from: URL. date of access
E.g.: Summaries of product characteristics. Available from: www.medicines.org.uk (accessed 20 March 2011).