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A Junior Urban Adventure presentation on pharmaceuticals, healthcare, and addiction.

Got Pills?

+Why???

Drugs and alcohol, especially in the last 15 years, have become a major obstacle for many people in terms of addictions, health, occupation, and lifestyle. From alcoholism to a life-threatening dependence on prescriptions, many problems have arisen from the growing industry in pharmaceuticals. JUA gives students the opportunities to break down and investigate the intricacies of healthcare through hearing the stories of persevering alcoholics, exploring educational facilities which teach how to pursue this passion, and delve into the actual creative processes behind the drugs. Overall, students have come back with a honed awareness of such difficult problems.

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Hello House A long term rehabilitation center for men struggling with

drug and alcohol addictions.

MCPHS (Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences) Educational institution devoted to teaching and research on

healthcare, pharmacy, business, and dentistry.

Merck Industries International pharmaceutical corporation that creates, tests,

and markets new drugs and vaccines.

The Perspectives

+ Hello House Hello House is a drug rehabilitation

program that helps men to stop their dependence on substances and get their life back on track. All male ages 20-55 Based on the 12 step program of AA

(Alcoholics Anonymous) Ranges from 3-6 months in the

program. 24 men can stay in the house at once High success rate 4 AA meeting are run in the house a

week Before the program there are 3 days

of detox, after the detox they have a stabilization program, then they have 2 weeks of orientation after which they are required to get a day job.

+ Agree with We agree with the use of the 12 step program It is very cool how the AA meetings are held at the

house It was good to see that it was a small manageable

group of individuals instead of a large clinic that is public. The Hello House works hard to make sure that their clients are matched appropriately to the house for their best chance at success.

The zero-tolerance rule: the clients are tested multiple times a week for substances and are immediately released from the program if they fail.

The fact that they do not ever give up on a person is inspiring. The staff will support anyone willingly and working on improving themselves no matter how many times they have relapsed.

+Disagree with:The fact that

there is only 3 days of detox when there can be up 30 days of withdrawal symptoms.

The fact that they have to get a job after two weeks, that is not enough time for one to find themselves.

They allow the patients to still smoke; they should not be allowed any addictive substances.

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The most memorable statement made while we were at Hello House:

“Alcoholics aren’t people who drink too much, they are people who cannot get enough to drink.” ~ A Staff member of the Hello House

+ Merck

Merck is a multi-billion dollar pharmaceutical company that merged with Schering-Plough in 2009.

In 2009 Merck’s sales revenue was about 27.4 billion dollars with $5.8 billion going to drug development.

+ Facts About Merck A group of scientists at Merck

have been working on AIDs since the epidemic surfaced.

Merck has a compound bank which holds every compound ever

developed by Merck’s synthetic chemists in order to screen them

against new diseases.

The formulation of a drug is dependent upon how the medication needs to be

administered. Liquid or gel capsules can be broken down in the body faster where as tablets are meant to be slow-releasing.

To decide what diseases to work on, Merck analyzes how many

people are impacted by a disease and what their staff (chemists and biologists) are able to accomplish.

+ All drugs begin with biological hypothesis.

It takes 3-10 years for a drug to pass clinical trials.

Only 10% of drugs produced are successful in clinical trials

3 stages of clinical trials:1st Healthy people take the drug to see how

it effects the human body.2nd Used on people with problems to see if

the drug cures the illness.3rd Later used on larger population of people

to get statistics on side effects and safety.

+Agree with:

We liked the fact that Merck is one of two companies that is still producing vaccines. They do not make a lot of money from this but they believe it is important for people’s overall health.

Merck puts a lot of resources into acquiring the best equipment possible as well as hiring the best qualified people to work as quickly and effectively as possible as understanding and curing diseases.

Merck also helps by giving away medications for river blindness, greatly improving the quality of life for people who were infected with the parasite.

+Disagree with

Merck is a corporation so in choosing what diseases to tackle they look at how many people are impacted by it. There have to be enough people effected so that they can make a profit.

The pharmaceutical industry is very confidential. If they all worked together instead of competing against each other for profit, there would probably be more cures or medications for more diseases because the flow of information would be much larger.

+ Massachusetts College of Pharmacy

+ MCPHS MCPHS has many different schools including:

School of nursing Dental hygiene Medical imaging and therapeutics Pharmacy school Arts of science

We focused mostly on the school of pharmacy which has a total of 4 undergraduate programs (and many more graduate programs) Pharmacy – The PharmD program is direct entry for

a 6 year program and prepares you for a career in pharmaceutical public health.

+ Pharmaceutical Science :

The program offers a broad-based education in both the liberal arts and the pharmaceutical and biological science

Will teach you how create and construct medicine or pills.

Pharmaceutical and health care business : Full time, four year undergraduate degree Management of health care and the

pharmaceutical Health care incorporated with business

Pharmacology and toxicology : Hands on lab work on the affect of drugs on

the human body

+Agree with:

The direct entry program for the PharmD program provides students the ability to work together instead of competing against each other to apply to the program later in college.

There are state of the art labs and learning environments

The research available for students interested in the pharmaceutical industry is focused on teaching.

There are several internships with area companies available to students

+Disagree with:

The students in the PharmD program take one ethics class during their college career and there should be more classes over several years to better prepare students.

An internship program should be established for students interested in becoming pharmacists. This way the students can have more real life experiences in dealing with customers and being able to identify drug seekers or customers with irregularities in the rate they fill prescriptions.

+Our Give Back:The Greater Boston Food BankWe sorted around 11,722 pounds of food, in total creating over 7,222 meals. It was a lot of fun and it was even better that we could help so many people.

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+What this experience has meant to us…

+Works Cited

Hello House- http://www.voamass.org/Services/AdultSubstanceAbuse/HelloHouseMen/tabid/1401/Default.aspx

Mass. School of Pharmacy- http://www.mcphs.edu/

Merck- http://www.merck.com/- Boston location

Greater Boston Food Bank- http://www.gbfb.org/