Recent press...
Encouraging words from a long time user
thank you for wonderful kinetics programs that are reasonably priced and available on so many platforms.
Kind words from a long time user
Hey Rick, K** C***l and I were wondering how we could get a hold of your Kinetics
program. He and I used them in a prior life… Actually we were sent a M********x
version of K*******x and it pales in comparison to your program. Thanks for such
a great product.
A complement about TPNassist for Palm
Rick I really think you have a good product here. I am encouraging the other members
on the nutrition team to purchase a copy. It certainly reduces the mistakes and helps
in calculation of dosages.
Kind words from a loyal long time user
I am probably one of the very early users of your Kinetics program....
and I am still using it 15 years later. One of the really fantastic parts
you added over the years was dosing for various renally cleared drugs
....Thanks!
More encouraging words
Rick, I wanted to tell you how beneficial your program has been for us.
We do the kinetics on all vancomcyin and aminoglycoside orders, and
rewrite them without doctors cosignature, under protocol. We searched
for a suitable program and found yours was just what we needed. Easy
to use and accurate.
Kind words from a fellow pharmacist evaluating currently available PDA PK calculators:
The Pocket Pharmacist: Pharmacokinetic Calculators
When I begin to doubt myself and wonder why I took on this huge responsibility, I remember this comment I received last year from an Austrian physician:
Rick:
Thank you for the Cefepime model, it really helps a lot, seizures
have disappeared from our institution.
Kudos from vet students
hey thanks for maintaining this site it is a great help for us vet students!
Kudos from across the sea
Vielen, vielen DAnk! Sie haben mir viel Arbeit erspart!
Nice feedback from a student
Thank you soooooooooo much. It is an incredible site. I'll be
tested on this topic shortly and your site makes the whole concept
so much easier to understand. It's very concise.
Kind words from a pharmacy director
Rick -
Just wanted to let you know how impressed we are here at E** with both
the kinetics and tpn tutorials. We are very big on education here (in fact
we have a part-time pharmacy educator position). Most new pharmacists go through
8-12 weeks of orientation before they are "on their own". We are currently
expanding and standardizing our clinical training and are incorporating both
of your tutorials in this process. They are excellent training tools.
I wasn't sure if you've had much feedback on these and I wanted to make sure
you knew just how helpful they are.
And then along comes this internet naïve guy, who obviously is having a bad day, and decides to take his frustration out on me.
Your web site is the pits including this email function. I have typed in
information 5 times and have no indication if i have been successful in ordering
labels, APK and drip charts. This my second attempt to forward this email. I
did not type my affiliation, so every thing i have done after that ommission has
been obliterated. If your software performs like this site, I am making a big
mistake. Please let me know if I have ordered anything. I know i have not paid
for it because the cc section never recorded any of my transactions.
Thank goodness his order never went through!
Words of support from an old colleague
Rick long time no see. I have just left ******* and am now Director of
Pharmacy at S**** Memorial Hospital starting this week. This is a not for profit
hospital located on the Eastern Shore of ********. One of the reasons the hospital
hired me was for my experience in starting clinical programs. This is my second day
on the job and I have already found that the hospital does not have a good kinetics
program. I told my VP that I know of an excellent program that will be liked by both
the medical staff and the pharmacy staff and he gave me the OK to purchase the program.
Please send me a formal quote so that I can get it approved for purchase.
Kind words from a teacher
Hi Rick -- I have looked at your programs before and want to teach my
Clinical Pharmacokientics course using them. I will put a link and
information for them in my course area on Blackboard. There are 127
students in the course so you may be getting a number of requests in
the near future.
Encouraging words from a teacher
I find your nutrition tutorial very helpful for my students. I thought
I could send more than $5.oo with Amazon. Do you have Paypal? I'd like to
send some additional funds. Thanks
More kudos from a teacher
I am a PharmD in ###, ###. I will be teaching a class in pharmacology
in the fall for neonatal NNPs. I really like your on-line tutorial and
was wondering if it would be okay to use/recommend your tutorial for my
students.
A compliment from a nursing school instructor
I am requesting permission to use two slides and select text from your nutritional support tutorial. J******** C****** is a community college south of S******, M*****. We have both an LPN and RN nursing program. One of my courses is the GI system and we have a small section on malnutrition and obesity. Your material is excellent for that lecture.
Kind words from a student
Thank you for providing a wonderful program with the option to test it out
freely prior to registering!
Another nice complement
I love this program. I am involved in a rural family practice residency
program for 2nd and 3rd year residents and it really comes in handy
More encouraging words
All the clinical pharmacists love your program and want me to now
put it on the network for all of us to use.
More kind words
Your program is fabulous. It hit the vanco trough right on for a
500 lb patient. Thanks!
Another nice complement
I work in the Childrens' Hospital at *** and before I got your program
I was doing all of my kinetics by hand. Your program is awesome and it
saves me alot of time! Now I only crunch numbers on the less than 2kg
babies. The program works wonderfully.
Today I received a nice email, it's very encouraging to hear things like this:
I just wanted you to know how useful your website is. I have spent
the better part of a day looking for appropriate information on TPN to
support a group of nurses who will be getting their first TPN patient
this week. Yours was the first and only website I found with precisely
the information I needed. Thanks.
Kind words from a fellow pharmacist:
Rick, your software is miles ahead of what we're using now, it takes the
headaches out of kinetics. Your website and tutorials are excellent!
Kudos from a fellow pharmacist:
Rick, your software is the best I have found on the market, including overpriced
entries from M********* and A***.
I check my web logs periodically to see how people happen to stumble across my little corner of the internet. It's usually through a search engine such as google, but this time I found several hits coming from a page at auburn.edu. So I visit the site and find a "review" of the Antibiotic Kinetics for Palm program. It's a real hatchet job by a group of highly critical, opinionated pharmacists. After reading it, I'm surprised I received any hits at all. The most frustrating part is, not one of their criticisms is true.
Criticism #1. Frustrated by need to enter patient demographics which are
not needed if you have drug levels.
Reply - Patient demographics (age, ht, wt, gender, SCr) are necessary
to calculate the population model used with Bayesian analysis.
Criticism #2. Lack of conversion, forced to use cm/kg not in/lb.
Reply - This is available after you register the program, it is a carrot held
out to entice you to register.
Criticism #3. Difficult to know which button to push, wasn't worth the time
to figure out.
Reply - Unfortunately, the small size of the Palm screen requires the use of
abbreviations. The program has help for each screen which explains every detail. Some
screens have a "?" button for help, all others have help via the Menu. Otherwise,
everything is explained in the manual.
Criticism #4. No adjustments for ODA aminoglycides, I could not find a setting
to change mg/kg.
Reply - Every model parameter, including the "mg/kg" ODA dose is on the
model editing screen. Please refer to the user manual.
Criticism #5. No Hartford nomogram.
Reply - Yes there is.
Criticism #6. Vancomycin dosing is overkill.
Reply - That is your opinion, why is that a criticism of my program? It's
there for the people who do want to dose Vancomycin using a pk model. If you don't
want to see it, you may delete it from the model database.
Criticism #7. Very few clinicians measure peaks, much less the 2-3 levels
required to perform retrospective dosing.
Reply - The program is very flexible, you can evaluate a single level using
Bayesian analysis, or up to 4 levels around a single dose. Pharmacists use many
different methods for performing pk analysis, this program accommodates them all.
Again, this is explained in the manual.
Criticism #8. Aztreonam, Ceftaz, and Netilmicin are useless and should be
eliminated.
Reply - Again, that is your opinion, why is that a criticism of my software?
I included these drug models to show how flexible the program is, that it could be
used to model 1-cpt drugs other than AG's. A 1-cpt model of Aztreonam can be
very useful when dosing patients with renal impairment. Again, you can add or delete
any drug using the model editing screen.
I am at my desk on a quiet summer day, when I receive a call from an obviously stressed out pharmacist. "Your software is WRONG" he screams at me. "What do you mean?", I replied somewhat sheepishly. "The creatinine clearance your program gives is completely wrong.", was his reply in a most indignant tone. I mentioned that the difference was most likely due to the weight he was using in his hand calculation, that the program uses lean body weight, and that this was one of the FAQ's on the website. "All right", he says as he slams down the phone. About 15 seconds later I get another call from the same fellow. "I put in lean body weight and it's still wrong". I try to explain that he doesn't have to calculate lean body weight, that the program performs these calculations automatically and uses the appropriate weight. By now the guy is coming down off of his adrenaline-fueled rage, and mutters a reply, "I was just thrown into this job and haven't been trained, I guess I don't know what the hell I'm doing." I mentioned that the pk tutorial on the website might be helpful.
I never heard back from this particular pharmacist, but hardly a day goes by that I don't receive the same question from someone under a little less duress. The Cockroft and Gault equation is one of the most commonly used, yet least understood calculations in pharmacy. I'm afraid that for every pharmacist who questions me, there are ten who don't bother to ask, and who believe "this software stinks".
Today I received another nice email:
Just a word of Kudos on Freekin--- you have a great ability to simplifiy
such complex material for us lowly clinicians to really be able to use it!
Thanks for the great software, and the great website that explains it all!
Last year I fulfilled an order for APK from a pharmacist at a Colorado hospital. Four months later, after not receiving payment, I emailed him a gentle reminder, asking if there is a problem, otherwise, to please see about payment. His blunt 3 word reply was, "Send an invoice". I obliged by attaching a copy to the reply email. A couple of weeks later I received a check from the pharmacist himself, NOT the hospital. The amount of the check was less than the invoice, and he had scribbled a nasty note across the invoice, "Your software is junk, the results are not accurate." I tried several times to reach this fellow to find out just what he meant, but he never replied. So much for professional courtesy. Fortunately, there are only a few bad apples. Most pharmacists I've dealt with are courteous and friendly, and realize that any software is only as good as the person using it.
A few days later I receive this email and I remember why I do this:
Rick,
First off thanks for providing a great kinetics program. We have
been using APK house wide for a few months now, and our electronically
timid RPhs are finally realizing the power contained in this program.
I get daily internal emails of a new pharmacist that has had a Palm
Epiphany, and finally realizes what they can do.
www.rxkinetics.com
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