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COVID Impact on Healthcare Education

  Often times when we think of the impact of COVID, we think about how it is affecting our lives in the very moment and not necessarily what it will mean in the context of the future of our careers. I’ve seen funny videos on Tik Tok of medical students making a joke of their “COVID” education experiences by googling simple diagnoses and definitions because for the past 2 years they’ve had a lot of online learning which impacted the more practical side of their education. One day when they’re practicing they might not know as much material as they’re expected to know because their curriculum wasn’t as strict as it typically is in person. Thinking back to when the pandemic first started in 2020 and how healthcare wasn’t prepared for a pandemic to completely alter the curriculum, faculty and preceptors were expected to switch everything to a virtual platform so quickly, leaving doctorate students to either try to learn their rotation virtually or to not have their rotati
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Direct-to-Consumer Marketing: Why?

     The United States is one of two countries on the planet that allow direct-to-consumer marketing, probably because businesses in the United States tend to only value profit. They probably assume that patients who don't know about their product won't be able to use it. One source estimated that $6.5 billion  dollars were spent on direct-to-consumer marketing in 2020. The problem is that direct-to-consumer marketing, besides being terrible for the economy, is dangerous for patients, and prevents doctors from providing the best care possible.     Thanks to direct-to-consumer marketing, many patients see a commercial for a medication that they don't need but that mentioned some problem that the patient has noticed in themselves. For the simple reason of being able to relate to something that the commercial mentioned, patients think that they have found their "cure". The reality is that for most drugs advertised on television or the internet, the average patient wi
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Current Issues in Community Pharmacy- brendan

The University of Michigan College of Pharmacy boasts a high match rate for graduating students entering residency programs and fellowships. Unlike the majority of pharmacy schools across the country, it has, on average, a relatively low number of students entering the community pharmacy workforce upon graduation. I was curious as to why that is, as I think the community pharmacy profession provides a pharmacist with an interesting opportunity to positively make an impact in the healthcare field. I looked into current events and trends within the field, and the results surprised me. According to a survey conducted by the University of Connecticut, nearly 75% of community pharmacists reported burnout. These pharmacists were either working for a grocery store or chain pharmacy. This response reflected a number of problems that many pharmacists encounter, such as being overworked and not getting paid for it, being understaffed with technicians, and not getting breaks during their shifts.
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Does Our Healthcare Show We Care?

    I would like to think that in America, everyone cares about the health of other people. Whether it's physical, mental, or emotional, I prefer to look at the good of people and the good of things. Life is too short to focus on the negativity, but I sometimes find myself struggling to see the good in America's healthcare. I have been blessed with having top healthcare my entire life from my father's job, so I have never had to experience some horrors millions of Americans can experience daily. Coming to UMich, however, opened my eyes quickly about the status of our country's healthcare. The challenges so many of us may face is indescribable and leaves my heart emptier every time I learn more.      At a glance, one might assume we have excellent indicators in our country because of how much of our country's GDP we spend on healthcare. Not to say that our healthcare is the worst globally, but it surely isn't where it should be. It also isn't where it can sta
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Current Issues in Healthcare Blog

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