One of the topics I often seem to neglect when I think of healthcare are the topics surrounding pharmacology. When I think of medicine, I tend to focus on more of the therapy and surgical side of treatment, some of which is only possible because of advances we have made in pharmacology. Dr. Kinghorn gave an interesting lecture on paradigm shifts related to plants and their medicinal benefits. I found this lecture intriguing because I tend to forget about how plants play a role in medicine.
Dr. Kinghorn talked about how different scientists, mostly botanists, have developed the field of pharmacology. While I am taking a pharmacology class currently, we tend to focus on the current topics in a broad scope so it was interesting to just hear about the history and how plants have been involved. I thought the discussion on opium was particularly interesting because I had just done lectures for pain management in the class previously mentioned.
Finally, I thought it was interesting to hear from Dr. Kinghorn about different places to visit while we are abroad that related to his topic. It was also good to hear from someone who grew up in the country we are going to visit and his ideas on their current political and social environment.