Branches
- Pharmacodynamics - finding out what drugs do to the body and how. This includes not just the cellular and molecular aspects, but also more relevant clinical measurements. For example, not just the biology of salbutamol, a beta2-adrenergic receptor agonist, but the peak flow rate of both healthy volunteers and real patients.
- Pharmacokinetics - what happens to the drug while in the body. This involves the body systems for handling the drug, usually divided into the following classification:
- Absorption
- Distribution
- Metabolism
- Excretion.
- Rational Prescribing - using the right medication, at the right dose, using the right route and frequency of administration for the patient, and stopping the drug appropriately.
- Adverse Drug Effects
- Toxicology
- Drug interactions
- Drug development - usually culminating in some form of clinical trial.
Read more about this topic: Clinical Pharmacology
Famous quotes containing the word branches:
“A good word is as a good tree—
its roots are firm,
and its branches are in heaven;
it gives its produce every season
by the leave of its Lord.”
—Qur’An. Abraham 14:29-30, ed. Arthur J. Arberry (1955)
“In the woods in a winter afternoon one will see as readily the origin of the stained glass window, with which Gothic cathedrals are adorned, in the colors of the western sky seen through the bare and crossing branches of the forest.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root, and it may be that he who bestows the largest amount of time and money on the needy is doing the most by his mode of life to produce that misery which he strives in vain to relieve.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)