Faraz Khurshid

Western Sydney University

Phenomenon: Pharmacology is a fundamental healthcare discipline, but it can be difficult and counterintuitive for learners to learn. Navigation toward understanding pharmacology can be troublesome, but once the threshold to comprehension is crossed, learners can experience a transformative shift in their ways of thinking and practicing. We conducte...

Introduction The knowledge complexity and varied delivery formats in pharmacology education can leave students unprepared in essential pharmacotherapy skills. This significantly influences their ways of thinking and working in clinical environments, resulting in a challenging clinical transition. This need demands pedagogical innovations to strengt...

This study introduces a novel approach to pharmacology education aimed at enhancing students' competency in complex tasks like rational prescribing. The approach integrates knowledge, skills, and attitudes by utilizing key pharmacological concepts. The study employs the 4C/ID paradigm, which emphasizes task-centered learning, and presents an exempl...

The disciplinary learning of pharmacology prepares learners to effectively utilize the knowledge gained for a rationalised approach to pharmacotherapeutic management. However, the major challenge to improved ways of thinking and practising lies in the overwhelming and troublesome nature of pharmacology knowledge [1]. Understanding several concepts...

Nominal Group Technique (NGT) is a structured approach to consensus development and data collection driven by problem-solving, idea inception and prioritisation. Challenges of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic necessitated the development of a virtual (vNGT) model to recruit participants from diverse locations and time zones. Our ref...

We are focused on identifying concepts that transcend just building blocks (core concepts) of pharmacology. Identification of these crucial learning bottlenecks helps to transform learners’ ways of reasoning & viewing the discipline. Moreover, these concepts influence learners’ ways of thinking & practicing within specific disciplinary discourses.

Review question How pedagogical interventions for pharmacology education influence university-level student’s learning and teaching? Searches Regular bibliographic databases: MEDLINE (OVID), Cochrane, EBSCO hosted ERIC, Scopus, Embase (OVID). Additional records: WorldCAT, Google, Open MD, Blog (Post by Keith Rischer), ETHOS British library, OUT e p...

Uncorrected refractive error is the leading cause of moderate and severe visual impairment across the globe. An important driver for early detection and management of refractive errors among children is appropriate parental awareness. This study aims to understand the awareness and perception among parents of children with refractive errors utilizi...

Introduction: Pharmacology is enfolded in a set of discrete concepts, which can be viewed as a complex web. Within these concepts sit some distinctive threshold concepts that can influence students’ epistemic modes of reasoning and interpretation. Internalisation and mastery of those concepts prompts students to think, practice and demonstrate comp...

Introduction/background: Pharmacology is considered troublesome because of difficult nomenclature and high information load. Students often find difficulty understanding drugs and their interaction with target molecules. This knowledge is fundamental for administration and monitoring of drugs’ therapeutic and adverse effects. Furthermore, the conte...

Background: Although challenging, writing prescriptions is an essential practical competency of medical graduates. This process is transformative as it reflects medical students’ ways of thinking and practising. A conceptual framework, similar to “way of thinking and practising”, known as ‘threshold concepts’ can help students to establish meaning...

Purpose: Pharmacology is widely experienced as a difficult to learn discipline. Unfamiliarity with its technical and medical terms, and how pharmacological principles transfer from theory to practice, is especially troublesome. This known state of affairs is evenmore compounded where English is not the first language of students in question. This s...

Idea in Nutshell: This preprint discusses Liam second venture to the tunnel of liminality. ''Liam embarked into the zone of troublesome knowledge that is Drug-Drug interactions (DDI) in pharmacology. He is of the opinion that it can be a potential threshold concept in the following ways''

Learning in any context involves acquisition, storage and utilization of information by the human memory system. Teaching and learning in health professions is a complex process since it demands learners interact with a number of novel information and concepts and critically analyze them to make important clinical decisions. Therefore, it is impera...

Background: Retinoscopy is one of the important clinical skills an undergraduate optometry student should learn. It requires time, dedication, practice and support to attain an acceptable level of proficiency. We report the process of implementing Cooperative Learning (CL) for Retinoscopy skill training in an Optometry program, focusing the prepara...

Introduction The study investigated students’ perception of introducing blended learning strategies to engage and motivate them towards lecture halls and Problem Based Learning (PBL) sessions for improving the quality of the overall students’ learning experience. Methods A prospective study was conducted at the Aga Khan University Medical Colleg...

This study reports the inefficacy associated with the use Bimatroprost for eyelashes growth; it may be considered as the first step to spread awareness about the misuse of this drug for cosmetic purpose.

This article was migrated. The article was marked as recommended. Concept animation - the graphical array of pictures accompanied by text as speech balloons, can help to improve learner’s comprehension from basic to advanced levels concepts. When the process of concept comprehension is not facilitated, the learner may come in a transitional state o...

Basic Understanding: During a classroom discussion about management of dry eye disease; the teacher discussed that in a patient with dry eye, there is a high tear film osmolarity. This tear film hyperosmolarity has a damaging 'pro-inflammatory' effect on the lining epithelium of conjunctiva and cornea. The teacher taught that in this case, hypo-osm...

Teaching the advanced level concept of antibiotic drug resistance and combination therapy was a challenge. Concept animation has been utilized to facilitate student's understanding of the complex concept; moreover, it augments student' interest in the subject.

This Oral Presentation was made as part of the parallel sessions at OTTAWA-ICME conferences 2018 held in Abu-Dhabi, UAE ICME - Theme (of the this presentation) was Student Characteristcs & Learning Strategy 1 and Learning on Assessment

This is how ”’Graphic Medicine’’ is making a difference; narrating the name of a drug in a funny comic. The use of student’s common spelling mistakes for making them learn the names of drugs. Every drug has a story and we are narrating it through the medium of ’Graphic Medicine’. This is a venture of the concept from ideas to knowledge retention.

Abstract Objective: The study was undertaken to establish student perception and interest in a graphic medicine approach to the teaching and learning of pharmacology in optometry. Methods: The Graphic-oriented approach to the teaching of pharmacology was introduced periodically to undergraduate students of optometry in semesters five and six. The...

ABSTRACT Context: This study is conducted to determine the correlation between retinal nerve fiber layer (RNFL) thickness and optic nerve head (ONH) size in normal and glaucomatous subjects by optical coherence tomography (OCT). Objective: The objective of this study is to compare the thickness of RNFL in relation to ONH size and average retinal ne...

Comparison of retinal nerve fiber layer thickness in relation to optic nerve head size and average retinal nerve fiber layer thickness using optical coherence tomography in glaucom. ABSTRACT Context: This study is conducted to determine the correlation between retinal nerve fiber layer (RNFL) thickness and optic nerve head (ONH) size in normal and...

Fragile X syndrome is considered the most common heritable form of X-linked intellectual disability (ID). The syndrome is caused by silencing of the fragile X mental retardation 1 gene (Xq27.3) due to hypermethylation. This mutation results in absence or deficit of its protein product, the fragile X mental retardation protein (FMRP) that affects sy...

Fragile X syndrome is considered the most common heritable form of X-linked intellectual disability (ID). The syndrome is caused by silencing of the fragile X mental retardation 1 gene (Xq27.3) due to hypermethylation. This mutation results in absence or deficit of its protein product, the fragile X mental retardation protein (FMRP) that affects sy...