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Antibiotics: Learning outcomes

Last updated: Monday, July 02, 2018

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After completing this tutorial, you will be able to:
  • Describe the importance of effective antibiotic stewardship.
  • Classify common clinically important bacteria, describe what organisms are usually found where and select appropriate antibiotics.
  • Tailor antibiotic therapy according to your patient's medical history, concomitant medicines and allergy status.

You can download a PDF of the whole tutorial (without interactive elements such as Learning Exercises).

Competencies

This tutorial is aimed at hospital pre-registration pharmacists, and will help you achieve GPhC standards such as these:
  • A1.6  Make decisions which demonstrate clear and logical thought
  • A3.1  Recognise and define actual or potential problems
  • A3.2  Identify workable options to resolve the problem
  • A3.3  Select the best solution, based on sound analysis and appropriate evidence
  • B1.4  Elicit all relevant information by the use of appropriate questions
  • C2.1  Provide considered and correct answers to queries, founded on research-based evidence

If you are a foundation pharmacist, this tutorial may help you meet competencies from the RPS framework including:
  • 1.2 Need for the medicine
  • 1.4  Selection of the medicine (medicine-medicine, medicine-patient, medicine-disease interactions)
  • 1.5 Medicine specific issues (ensures appropriate dose, selection of dosing regimen, selection of formulation and concentration)
  • 1.8 Evaluation of outcomes
  • 3.2  Knowledge 
  • 3.3  Analysing information

Continuing professional development


Finally, here are some CPD activities you could consider:

★  Shadow your microbiology multi-disciplinary team on a ward round. Reflect upon, and learn from their expert decision making.
★  Does your department record the clinical questions received by the on-call pharmacists out of hours? Review the calls involving antibiotics - would you have known the answer or where to look for information? Identify and prioritise your knowledge and experience gaps.
★ Choose a patient with an interesting infection and present the case to your team. Teaching others is an effective way to improve your knowledge of a particular topic and increase your confidence if faced with a similar case again.