Spectrum Assignment

Background

Spectrum is a clinical app designed for optimizing institutional antibiograms, clinical guidelines and antimicrobial information through an easy to use phone/tablet application. We will be using it in the classroom to supplement and reinforce your antibiotic knowledge. The app will serve as an easy way to look up antibiotic information when completing extra credit quizzes and patient cases. It will also allow you to reinforce your knowledge as you understand different infectious diseases syndromes.

Assignment

Each team will be assigned to 3 antimicrobials. The assignment includes looking up basic drug information regarding the assigned antibiotic and discussing it with one of 3 faculty members (Dr. Fong, Dr. Kang and/or Dr. Yamaki). The information that is required includes:

  1. Brand name
  2. Standard dosing
  3. Renal adjustments (required or not)
  4. Adverse effects (common and serious)
  5. Mechanism of action
  6. Antibiotic class
  7. Formulations
  8. Bioavailability (non-IV formulations)
  9. Route of elimination/metabolism
  10. Normal half-life
  11. Additional information you find interesting

Schedule

You will be required to meet with Dr. Fong, Dr. Kang and/or Dr. Yamaki prior to Tuesday, February 20th (preferably before Wednesday, February 6th) to review your work. Once your work is verified, it will be approved and made available in the Spectrum app for the whole class to use. To sign up for a review session, please use the following Google doc: Spectrum Assignment Sign-up Sheet.

In addition, there will be 6 10-question quizzes after February 20th that will count as extra credit. Each quiz is worth 0.33% extra credit (maximum total extra credit is 2.0%). Quizzes will be antibiotic or pathogen-related questions that can be answered most efficiently using the Spectrum app.