Pharmacogenomics and Chronic Illness Essay.
Pharmacogenomics is the field of medical study dedicated to finding the answers as to why patients’ response to medications or drugs is affected by genes. It is a combination of the study of drugs as well as that of gens and their expression. That is pharmacology and genomics respectively (US Department of Health and Human Services, 2020). The subtopic chosen for this assignment is pharmacogenomics and chronic illness. The journal article by Yamamoto et al. (2019) on pharmacogenomics and chronic pain is the one that will be looked at here with regard to its relationship to nursing practice.Pharmacogenomics and Chronic Illness Essay.
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A Brief Summary of the Article
This article by Yamamoto et al. (2019) was written in the context of chronic pain therapy. Chronic pain is pain that occurs for more than three consecutive months and is classified as a chronic illness. The authors state that the observed genetic differences that are related to the effectiveness, efficacy, or side effects of drugs can be harnessed to provide direction on how chronic pain can be managed. Because it is still a relatively new field, clinical implementation of pharmacogenomics is still challenging. What is required is the translation of the pharmacogenomic study findings in a seamless manner into clinical decision making (Yamamoto et al., 2019). In this, nurses are intimately involved as they are the foremost patient advocates. Pharmacogenomics and Chronic Illness Essay.
Ethical Implications and Nurses’ Advocacy Role in Care Provision in the Context of Pharmacogenomics
Nurses are responsible for ensuring that patients with chronic illnesses are not predisposed to medication habituation or suffer their detrimental effects (adverse effects). This is in line with the bioethical principle of nonmaleficence or primum non nocere (Haswell, 2019) and requires closely matching patient idiosyncratic responses to medication given. Thus advocacy requires the nurse to closely monitor response and take action.Pharmacogenomics and Chronic Illness Essay.