PHRM30008: Drugs: From Discovery to Market

Four assignments (15% - 2.5, 5, 5, 2.5% resp.), mid semester test (15%), final exam (70%)

Going to pretty much reiterate what T-Rav said. It's without a doubt the worst subject I've ever taken in uni.

Coming from PHRM20001, I had extremely high expectations/esteem/respect for the Pharmacology department and was at many points considering switching to a Pharmacology major from my Neuroscience/Physiology major.

As T-rav said, the content wasn't too difficult and it wasn't dry - in fact, some parts were actually extremely interesting (i.e. Pharmacodynamics, Pharmacokinetics, Kinases, Enzymes etc, and GPCRs).

The real problem I have with this subject is the assessments and the lack of organisation with this subject.

Assessments were definitely hit and miss -
Whe first 3 assignments (case studies) we had were extremely interesting, we had to read a bunch of "state of the art" journal papers on the class of drugs which would be used to treat Chronic asthma, Cystic Fibrosis and also the Hepatitis C Virus . The content here was good but the problem was that they split the assignments into a "draft" (generally worth 1/5 of the 2.5% or 5%) and a final report (usually due a week or 2 later worth the remainder mark).
In theory this should be great since we have a draft where we can play around with various styles of writing and then get feedback on our draft to do nothing short of excellent for the final! WRONG - instead of getting the case study instructions/information 1 week prior to the due date, we'd often get them 2-3 days before the due date - and I know it's probably not a big deal to fuss over 2.5% but when we're in 3rd year trying to not destroy our GPA even further and thus prioritize 30% mid sems over this, it's a big deal.
To add to this, we didn't get any feedback for the drafts before the due date so we were pretty much left in the dark for the assignments.

The 4th assignment was a "exam preparation" task where we had to answer a "typical question" you'd get in the exam. So it was due on the last day of semester which is fine and theoretically, since we had 1 week of SWOTVAC we could expect to get feedback for this so that we could optimise our chances in the final exam!! However, even though it was due 29th of May - as of 20th June, I still have not gotten feedback for this task which in theory should have given me/everyone else the edge for the exam.

MST - was total bs - 4 X 10 mark questions in 40 minutes which is 1/2 the time we'd have on average compared to the final exam (6 questions in 120 minutes). I guess the absurd assessment speaks for itself when >30% failed and the average was ~55%. Interestingly the coordinator said that the distribution of the scores was just where he'd expect and want them to be which means that we're all actually so screwed unless there is going to be some scaling involved.

Final Exam - don't really know what to say for this tbh - the stuff which I was expecting to come up didn't come up, and the stuff which came up I wasn't well prepared for. I guess it comes down to luck on what comes up since a lot of the content isn't assessed S:

Another bit of a rant about the weird assessment - we had 15% for a 40 mark MST, and 70% for a 60 mark Final exam which is all SAQ not MCQ. This means the even if you had 100% for the Assignments (which isn't very likely)/ and you had say an above average MST mark (60% or so) - you'd have 15+9 = 24 marks / 30 potential marks

Thus to H1, you'd need 56%/70% on the exam which means you need 48 marks/60 on the exam. I'd say this isn't impossible but it's definitely not easy and especially when the marking seems so stringent (20 information bits for 10 marks) and variable - some lecturers want X, others want XYZABC, and most of the time when you email them, they'll say some generic stuff like "all content is examinable".

In closing, content not bad, assessment is horrible and the organisation and coordination of this subject is nothing short of a disaster. I haven't met anyone who did PHRM30008 who genuinely enjoyed the subject + thought the assessment was good + thought the staff were well organised. T-Rav wasn't bsing about it - I'd wager that 99%+ of the cohort felt the same way about the assessment + organisation of the subject.
PS - don't take this subject unless you need it for a Pharm major especially if you want to have a good GPA (mine's probably going to fall hard unless there's some ridiculously insane scaling or standardisation involved)

If I were to go back in time, I wouldn't have spent my level 3 subject slot on this subject.

Yes, with screen capture

Gary Anderson
James Ziogas
Michael Lew
Alastair Stewart
Sarah-Jane Beavitt
Tony Hughes
Ross Bathgate
Dan Hoyer
Guillaume Lessene

Yes

0.5 out of 5

Don't need any book.

3 x 1 hour lecture weekly; 1 x 1 hour tutorial every three weeks (during lecture slot 3)

Semester 1 2015

It's probably going to be really bad

Continuing assessment 10% Mid-semester assessment 20% A 2 hour examination in the examination period 70%

This subject is required for a pharmacology major. It goes through some basic pharmacological principles in more depth than Pharmacology: How Drugs Work (level 2), and talks about the drug discovery process. The "continuing assessment" consists of online multiple choice tests with a lot of time to look up the answer if you don't know, and a lot of people get full marks on them (or close to it). The midsemester test had a lot of time pressure (and all essay/short answer), and the average mark was 50% this year. The final exam also had no multiple choice and was all essays, and you had to choose 6/7 topics to write on. However, it was less pressured for time than the midsemester.

Yes, with screen capture.

(could have missed some) Michael Lew, Tony Hughes, Ross Bathgate, Alastair Stewart, Gary Anderson, Peter McIntyre

Yes, one provided (subject began last year), past questions from other relevant subjects also provided. However, no past midsemesters available.

4 Out of 5

None prescribed. Recommended:Pharmacology, Rang et al., Churchill Livingstone, 6th edition, 2007 OR Principles of Pharmacology, Golan et al., Lippincott, Wilkins & Williams, 2nd edition, 2007. Not really "needed"; I didn't look through them last semester.

Contact Hours: 3 x one hour lectures per week (total contact hours: 36) Total Time Commitment: 120 hours

2011 Semester 1

H1