The Orangetheory Workout

An emergency department clinical pharmacist at Sharp HealthCare in San Diego, Dr. Ashkan Khabazian gives frequent lectures to the hospital's staff members, and provides other education to nurses to ensure quality patient care. Passionate about fitness, Dr. Ashkan Khabazian keeps himself in good shape through Orangetheory Fitness.

A total-body workout designed for groups, Orangetheory blends scientific knowledge with coaching experience to improve metabolism, health, and vitality. Each class involves three different sets of workout types: rowing to enhance strength and endurance; a cardio workout on the treadmill or exercise bike; and strength training through rotating exercises to build different muscles.

The classes take place under the direction of experienced coaches who seek to inspire each person while pushing them to greater achievement. They also guide participants through an awareness of five levels of heart rate, from resting to all out, or The Orange Zone, helping them learn when to keep pushing and when to back off and relax. Goals for the workout include burning fat and boosting metabolism without putting too much stress on the body.

A Brief Overview of Pharmacokinetics in Older Patients

A graduate of the University of Michigan with a PharmD, Dr. Ashkan Khabazian serves as the lead emergency department clinical pharmacist at Sharp Memorial Hospital in San Diego. In this position, Dr. Ashkan Khabazian works with hospital staff to manage and optimize pharmacokinetics, or how the human body reacts to a drug.

The way a drug is absorbed, metabolized, and excreted from the body depends on many factors, among them genetic makeup, sex, and age. The half-life of some drugs, particularly those that require both metabolism and excretion, is very long in elderly patients. As the general population ages and more medications become available, it’s vital that a clinical pharmacist predicts how multiple medications may interact with each other, and whether such interactions are contributing to a patient’s symptoms when they present in the hospital.

The ultimate goal of clinical pharmacokinetics is to enhance efficacy and decrease toxicity in a patient’s drug therapy. In elderly patients, this usually requires that the dosage of certain drugs be decreased, especially for patients who take more than one daily medication. A good thing to remember when dosing medication in the geriatric population is to "start low & go slow", meaning start on lower end of the dose range and titrate up slower than you typically would. Particularly with medications that are of fall risk.

What Is Pharmacokinetics?

The recipient of a doctor of pharmacy degree from the University of Michigan, Ashkan Khabazian has served as an emergency department clinical pharmacist at Sharp HealthCare since 2009. In this role, Dr. Ashkan Khabazian draws upon his knowledge of therapeutic options to provide the right medicine to patients in critical condition. He is also versed in pharmacokinetics.

Pharmacokinetics informs the optimal dose regimen chosen and administered by clinical pharmacists. Put simply, it's the study of how the body reacts to a particular drug, and includes the relationship between plasma drug concentration and time; how the drugs are removed from the body; and the rate of drug absorption, and how it's distributed to body tissues.

The four primary processes in pharmacokinetics are absorption, distribution, metabolism, and excretion, the latter two of which are critical as routes of drug elimination. Drugs that aren't absorbed intravenously must cross tissue membranes like the capillary wall and gut endothelium to enter the blood. Absorption via the administration of an oral dosage is often incomplete due to a variety of hazards.

These four pharmacokinetic processes determine the frequency of prescribed doses, the duration of the drug in a patient's blood, and how long before repeated doses reach a plateau.

Economic Impact of the Fashion Week

Remi Landau of Scarsdale, New York is one of the city’s clothing designers. Remi Landau is creating a nightwear line for her present employer. In addition to creating her own line, she attends fashion week.

Fashion Week has become the hub where art and fashion converge to create trends for the next seasons. Established as Press Week during WWII, Fashion Week has expanded to include events in Milan, Paris, China, Japan, Mexico, Guatemala, and Brazil. However, for each of these locations, Fashion Week has done more for these cities and fashion than create buzz.

The amount of money the event generates has grown over the years, some believing that it significantly contributes to the city’s economy. In 2015, New York’s famed semi-annual Fashion Week was reported to have contributed $887 million to the city’s economy, drawing 232,000 attendees to more than 500 shows. Today, according to NYCEDC, this figure has moved closer to $900 million a year.

More than just a glitzy event attended by the country’s celebrities and well-heeled, New York’s Fashion Week is a part of an industry that contributes to 5.5 percent of the city’s workforce. In total, the fashion industry pays $11 billion in wages and contributes to $2 billion in tax revenue, and that was in 2015.

For other countries, Fashion Weeks events do a lot for the area. In many cases, Fashion Week is the opportunity to showcase local designers while generating revenue for the city. In Shanghai, Guatemala, Mexico, Brazil, and Tokyo, Fashion Week is the chance to change the image of these cities from being primarily textile producers, and more importantly, invite investment to the areas.