4 concerns about the passage below

Question

Learning objectives :

Illustrate the global contribution to the knowledge of pharmaceuticals.

Compare and contrast routes of drug administration.

...Pharmacology is the study of drugs and their interactions with living systems including chemical and physical properties, toxicology and therapeutics. Pharmacy Technicians educated in pharmacology have this kills to properly identified the drug from a patient's profile when refills are requested and the patient does not remember the drug name. Knowledge of Pharmacology facilitates selection of warning labels for drugs dispensed. Pharmacy Technicians who possess a good knowledge of Pharmacology understand the importance of recognizing drug interactions, theraputics duplication and excessive dose alerts acreened by the computer. Overall, pharmacy technicians who have a good working knowledge of Pharmacology can perform duties within their scope of practice with greater independence.

1. I wonder if the the contribution in the first sentence, really means help.

2. I wonder what the word property really means in this context.

3. Does the phrase a patient's profile here mean a patient's face?

4. I wonder what the phrase within their scope of practice means.

Answer 1

1. In this context, contribution means "share of the amount contributed." My physics professor in college and Albert Einstein have both contributed to the field of physics, although Einstein has made a much larger contribution.

2. Chemical and physical properties refer to traits. For example, snow is cold, and gold is shiny, and mercury is liquid at room temperature. These are properties of these elements and compounds.

3. The patient's profile is their medical records, but not necessarily associated with their specific name included. For example, one patient may be a 52-year old female epileptic, another may be a 26-year-old with asthma and two known drug allergies. Those are examples of two patient profiles.

4. In medicine, a practice is where you actually perform your work. A surgeon may have a practice in downtown Chicago, performing surgery in the ER of a local hospital, but then conducting follow-up appointments at a smaller office or clinic. These locales would describe or define the surgeon's practice. In the field of Pharmacology, a practice would be at whatever pharmacy the person works from day to day.

Answer 2

1. In this sentence, contribution does mean help, as a noun.

2. The word property in this context describes the chemical and physical characteristics of interactions between the study of medicine and its interaction with living systems(?).

3. Here, the patient's profile does not mean the patient's face. It means a file that contains the descriptions of a patient's symptoms and what medication they are on, and it is used by the pharmacists when the patients do not remember the name of their medicine.

4. Within the scope of their practice means within their field or area of expertise. So that last sentence basically means that pharmacy technicians who know a lot of Pharmacology can perform duties within their field of expertise alone.

Answer 3

1. I wonder if the the contribution in the first sentence, really means help.
2. I wonder what the word property really means in this context.
3. Does the phrase a patient's profile here mean a patient's face?
4. I wonder what the phrase within their scope of practice means.

1. The sentence you cite is incomplete. Are you sure you typed it correctly? If I make a "contribution" to the knowledge of pharmaceuticals, it means I have added to the total body of human knowledge about the subject of drugs and pharmacology. See the World English Dictionary definition #2 (not the first set of definitions, the second).
2. "Property" in this sentence means something like 'distinguishing feature' or 'behavior'. See the definition #6.
3. No, here it doesn't mean profile. It means something more like "categorization" or "general impression." Somewhere in Definition 7 and Definition 12 here.
4. "duties within their scope of practice" means those duties that are appropriate for a pharmacist to carry out. "Scope of practice" of a profession means within the area of professional expertise. For instance, an EMT's (a field medic, with an ambulance)'s "scope of practice" might include splinting a broken bone, while surgically repairing the bone splinters would be only within the scope of a surgeon's practice. See scope def. 1, practice def. 6.