(145c) Pharmaceutical Engineering: Curricular Integration and a Liberal Arts Perspective on a Chemical Engineering Elective

Most Chemical Engineering curricula require or allow for one or more upper level electives within the discipline to be taken in the junior and/or senior years. Many of these classes focus on technical depth often directly related to the faculty member’s research expertise. This talk presents the success of one such upper level elective that takes a broader approach. In this approach, the course focuses on the aspects of pharmaceuticals that both integrate topics from throughout the chemical engineering core curriculum and highlight the impact of pharmaceuticals from a social and humanistic perspective. This talk will highlight the course structure and approach, pedagogical methods used, specific examples of topics included, as well as data detailing the success and areas for improvement within the class.

Based on instructor availability across the department, the Pharmaceutical Engineering elective course is typically offered every 2-3 years, and has included three offerings since the spring semester of 2011. Each time the class has been offered, it has been fully or nearly fully enrolled. Courses at Bucknell are the equivalent of four semester credit hours, thus the course meets four hours per week throughout the semester. In each instance, at least one two hour block of time is included in order to allow for a broad set of pedagogical approaches to be used. As an elective course, it is not used to specifically assess any ABET criteria; however, the approach used leads to that natural incorporation of almost all aspects of ABET ‘a’ through ‘k’.

The course introduces students to the pharmaceutical industry through the lens of the FDA clinical approval process and pharmaceutical drug development. Group presentations are given both on pharmaceutical companies as well as specific pharmaceutical molecule products. These presentations provide a framework for a discussion of the historical, present and future contributions of the industry. Technical content is delivered in both lecture and problem based formats in areas that include crystallization, extraction, filtration and drying and each area specifically considers the related material and energy balances, materials science, fluid mechanics, heat and mass transfer, thermodynamics, unit operations and process design considerations. Social and humanistic aspects are introduced through both class discussion based on both readings and required documentaries, as well as formal classroom debates where two groups present the technical, economic and social considerations to a topic of current interest. The topical questions that have been considered in these formats include:

• What is the future of antibiotics?
• Should pharmaceutical products be directly advertised to consumers?
• Should pharmaceuticals be prescribed to critically ill patients outside of clinical trials?

Along with the positive outcomes of the class, lessons learned and recommendations both from the student and faculty perspective will be considered.