Revival of Complementary and Alternative Herbal Medicines

Herbal medicines, complementary or alternative medicines is a wide term for the therapies that are not part of standard care but it has many theories regarding efficacy based on personal experiences, history and common knowledge. It has long been used since ancient times since the beginning of human civilization. Its use had caught much attention in the early 1800s, with the development in the science of chemistry, a new era in pharmacotherapeutics and the use of active chemical ingredients in plants which were known to produce favorable therapeutic effects, were explored, active compounds were extracted, purified and their structure was revealed. This advancement paved the way towards modern pharmaceutical therapy. The modern drugs are based on these herbal medicines, after extracting the active and pure chemical compounds. Pharmacokinetics and physicochemical properties of the active ingredients was explored. It lead to the better understanding of efficacy and safety profile of these drugs and first choice for treatment of various diseases. At the same time, the herbal medicines were considered as secondarily important. After approximately two centuries, the use of herbal medicines have seen a revival globally both in developing as well as developed countries. In the past few years, the practice of using herbal medicines as an alternative and complementary health medicine has gained more importance. Herbal medicines are common for treatment of various ailments including cancer, digestive disorders, pain related disorders, neuropathic ailments and cardiac arrhythmias etc. Even it has been used by pregnant females and mostly perceived as safe. Its use has gained more attraction due to its ‘natural’ approach and lesser side effects. Their use if often overlooked but physicians should pay attention to these medicines. There is lack of familiarity, standardization of the drug components, unproven therapeutic effects in various diseases, unexplored toxicology, pharmacokinetics, drug-drug interactions, and compatibility in patients with varying medical, genetic and demographic history. There are serious concerns regarding the safety, efficacy and quality of herbal products and nutraceuticals. Accidental contamination and deliberate adulteration are assumed to be the main cause of the side effects. Much of the herbal medical knowledge is scattered in different regions of the world and mostly available at family, community and local level and mostly in any native languages. There is need of coherent sources, knowledge, and exploration of these medicines across the world. The herbal medicine has varying diversity in different geological regions and they should be investigated. There should be a regional or national body to control and approve the herbal medicines. Proper documentations on these medicines and food supplements should also be done.

Exploring Roles of a Subject Coordinator in a Private Secondary School Karachi, Pakistan

The study explored the roles of a subject coordinator in improving teachers' classroom practices in a private secondary school in Karachi, Pakistan. It aimed to further explore the facilitating and hindering factors in the coordinator's role. In order to conduct the study, a qualitative design through a case study approach was undertaken. The purpose of the study was to explore the processes of a subject coordinator, on how she performs her responsibilities and activities. The study was conducted with one subject coordinator, Shakila (pseudonym) and two teachers: Nina (pseudonym) and Saima (pseudonym). The data were gathered through different data collection tools like interviews (unstructured and semi-structured), observations of Shakila's practices, for example, during her classroom teaching, the planning sessions and departmental meetings Conducted on Fridays, as well as document analysis, where teachers' lesson plans, reflective journals, students' homework note books, school timetable and TORS of the coordinator were analyzed. All the interviews with the participants were tape-recorded. The interviews were then transcribed, coded, and themes were accordingly discovered. The findings of the study revealed that Shakila plays a number of roles aimed at improving teachers' classroom practices. The roles were found to be doing classroom observations, giving constructive feedback, facilitating planning and departmental meetings, monitoring students' and teachers' progress, communicating with teachers, mentoring by helping teachers in the lesson planning, helping teachers to enhance their pedagogical content knowledge and helping them in classroom management. The study further illustrates that working as a subject coordinator is not always a smooth and easy task. Rather, it has both facilitating and hindering factors for a subject coordinator in performing his/her roles effectively. The study further unveiled the factors which facilitate or help subject coordinators. The facilitating factors were found to be the subject coordinator's own quest for knowledge, school structure, Friday's sessions, support of the Aga Khan University-Institute for Educational Development (AKU-IED), support of South Education Office, and the cooperation of teachers; whereas, the hindering factors were found to be workload on subject coordinator and challenges faced by the teachers.