College of Pharmacy students go to the zoo
Have you ever seen how veterinarians give a giraffe eye drops or wondered if human medicines work on animals? That’s what second-year College of Pharmacy students from The University of North Texas Health Science Center at Fort Worth recently learned about when they took a class trip to the Fort Worth Zoo.
The annual field trip is the capstone event for students taking the non-sterile advanced compounding elective which covers compounded medications, unique dosage forms and techniques for both human and animal medications. Should students want to explore veterinarian-related jobs, this gives them a glimpse into a real-world career experience. This is the only course in the College of Pharmacy that directly addresses animal health and pharmacology.
“When Dr. Fix and I had the idea for this course, we decided to focus on advanced compounding techniques that they don’t get in their required curriculum,” said Theresa Day, RCPhT-Adv, PRS, pharmacy skills lab manager, HSC College of Pharmacy. “The first half is dealing with human compounding, and the second half dedicated to veterinary compounding which is a niche field that has grown in the last decade or so. The zoo trip is a culmination of the course.”