Poisons & Antidotes

Okay, so I post things about my family all the time but rarely anything about what I do for a living.  This week, the class I teach was particularly fun b/c the topic was poisons & antidotes.  Below are some pictures of my students from lab this week.  Students learned to correlate certain smells with common toxic agents for identification purposes.  We pharmacists actually do a lot in this area.  The poison control center for our state is actually a pharmacist run operation.  There is nothing like having your kid drink a bottle of Zyrtec, and not having any references at home, having to call the poison center to get the info and talking to your co-worker.  

Since pharmacists are also responsible for calculating the doses for antidotes and compounding them, I had my students get a little taste of what they will be trying to get the patient to ingest - let me tell you, antidotes don't taste great and are rarely given in small amounts - we're talking cups!  Below was the best for pictures b/c this one stains teeth pretty bad when you drink it (don't worry - a swig of
water takes care of the stain)

My partner in crime this week was our toxicology guru on faculty.  He is notorious for always wearing a bow tie.  In his honor, several of my students did the same.  

This week was just one example of why I love what I do.  The best thing about this particular lab was that a former student who I taught my first year on faculty actually came back taking time out of his work schedule (he is now working in toxicology) to assist this week  - talk about making an instructor feel good. :)