Dr. Mohammed Hisham, ICU Clinical Pharmacist, Kovai Medical Center and Hospital Coimbatore, delivered a lecture on January 22, 2016, on the importance of rational use of antibiotics and the role of the clinical pharmacist in this area. He started the talk with simple basics like different classifications of bacteria, viz., gram negative and gram positive, cocci and bacilli, anaerobic and aerobic bacteria and the different sensitive antibiotic classes that work against them. He clarified the need and urgency in the aforesaid topic with examples of dangerous antibiotic resistant strains of bacteria, like Klebsiella pneumoniae, which made news headlines recently as a pan resistant organism. 

Dr. Hisham elaborated on the spectrum of activity of each class of antibiotics against different organisms, including the dose and frequency of administration. For example, Cloxacillin – MSSA, S.pneumoniae, 1-2 mg, every 4-6 hours for skin and soft tissue infections. He kept the lecture interactive by putting forth questions from case scenarios and asked the students to solve them. He also explained his job as a clinical pharmacist in a critical care unit where one has to think and act quickly with precision. Hence, the clinical pharmacist should have updated knowledge and skills to work under pressure. He emphasized the importance of reading guidelines to put into clinical uses, rather than theoretical textbooks.

Dr. Hisham also enlightened the future pharmacists about various options after the Pharm. D. course and specializations in different departments of the health care system. He concluded the session by answering questions from the students.​