Psychopharmacology for the DBH - Cummings Institute

DBH Student Work Spotlight: Psychopharmacology for the DBH

Introduction by Dr. Janet L. Cummings, Psy.D.

July 8, 2020

I am very fortunate to get to teach the “medical literacy” courses at CGI, since I love the biological sciences. However, some of our students find these courses intimidating at first, since most of our students in the DBH program do not have strong science backgrounds. Each semester that I teach, I enjoy watching our students learn to appreciate (and even learn to love) Pathophysiology, Neuro-pathophysiology, and Psychopharmacology. To my delight, most of our students do quite well in these courses, sometimes to their own amazement.

I just finished teaching Psychopharmacology to a group of very bright and motivated students, some of whom I had taught before, but most of whom I met for the first time during our first webinar for the course. Each student selected a “focus medication,” and through a series of assignments, became an “expert” in the medication they had chosen. In many cases, they read and commented on each other’s work, in order to learn from their fellow “experts.”

When I read the students’ literature reviews, I was very impressed with what they had learned and how they were able to describe what they had learned in a professional and organized way. I even learned a few things from the students’ work. I decided that these brief but information-packed papers should be showcased, as they are indicative of the kind of quality work that CGI students produce. Ten of my students gave me permission to publish their work in the Biodyne Mindset newsletter.

I hope you enjoy reading these papers as much as I did, and that you gain some useful information on some well-known medications and some less-well-known ones.

Escitalopram (Lexapro) Literature Review
Amanda Barnard