Lessons to keep kids safe

By Jan Jarvis

Pharmacy students teach medication safety

 

After listening to a presentation on over-the-counter medicine safety, 10-year-old Kamila Allen was confident she could make the right choices the next time she needed relief from a cold.

“You should never take over-the-counter drugs by yourself because you could end up in the hospital,” she said. “You should go to the pharmacy and get the right medicine.”

It’s a good thing that Kamila was listening closely to the presentation by UNT System College of Pharmacy students.

Although children should be supervised when taking medications, research shows they typically begin self-medicating around age 11, said Loralee Phillips, a UNT Health Science Center pharmacy student who presented the program recently to Kamila and other students at North Hi Mount Elementary in Fort Worth. The children attend the Clayton Youth Enrichment Services afterschool program, a non-profit organization servicing school-age youth.

The presentation, sponsored by the American Pharmacists Association – Academy of Student Pharmacists, was created with fifth- and sixth-graders in mind. It was adapted from programming provided by the Scholastic Book Company, McNeil Pharmaceuticals and the National Poison Control Centers.

“The result of self-medicating at such a young age can be medication errors and misuse, especially when using combination products with the same active ingredients,” Phillips said. “I feel we’re really teaching a foundation of medication safety knowledge for these children to use forever, once they reach the appropriate age.”

In 2013, America’s poison centers managed more than 250,000 exposure cases involving children ages 6 to 19. More than half of these cases involved medication errors and misuse.

The presentation introduced the children to the importance of reading the Drug Facts label, using dosage devices, identifying active ingredients, and storing medicine safely.

Phillips decided last fall that she wanted to get the program into all 85 Fort Worth ISD elementary and middle schools. So far she has presented it to about 260 children at nine schools. She and other UNTHSC pharmacy students plan to reach another 120 children by the end of the school year.

Dennis Roman, 10, said he got a lot from the presentation.

“I learned that taking medicine is important because it makes you feel better,” he said. “But sometimes medicine can also make you sick.”

Recent News

Abe Clark
  • Research
|Mar 28, 2024

Dr. Abe Clark honored with international research award

Abbot “Abe” Clark, PhD, FARVO, FAAO, regents professor of pharmacology and neuroscience in the School of Biomedical Sciences at The University of North Texas Health Science Center at Fort Worth, has received the International Society for Eye Research 2024 Ernst H. Bárány Prize.   The awar...
Processed With Lensa With Pt12 Filter
  • Research
|Mar 28, 2024

Dr. Steven Romero receives American Physiological Society award for excellence in research

Dr. Steven Romero, associate professor of Physiology and Anatomy at the School of Biomedical Sciences at The University of North Texas Health Science Center at Fort Worth, was named the 2024 Henry Pickering Bowditch Award Lecturer by the American Physiological Society. The lectureship is awarded to ...
Screenshot 2024 03 28 At 8.50.12 am
  • Our People
|Mar 28, 2024

Physical therapy student lands prestigious role in national organization

When Jonathan Hansen was an undergraduate intern at Texas Health Arlington Memorial Hospital, he encountered a man who had just suffered a stroke. The patient’s right side was completely paralyzed. Hansen, now a first-year student in The University of North Texas Health Science Center at Fort Wort...
Jackie In Dc
  • Our People
|Mar 27, 2024

Personalized Health and Well-Being student repays generosity through advocacy

In 2019, The University of North Texas Health Science Center at Fort Worth student Jacqueline Green said she felt hopeless. She became pregnant while experiencing hard financial times, and she didn’t have insurance. Compounding her stress was terrible grief. Her mother-in-law suddenly passed away,...