Follow the Yellow Brick Road!

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Interview with Dr. Diana Rangaves! Dr. Diana Rangaves is a pharmacist, philanthropist, and ethics professor turned writer. An accomplished educator, award-winning teacher, and business professional, she uses her powers for good. Diana is a foster mom for PapHavenRescue.org and lives in California with her dogs and pasture pets, in their forever home. She is the author of Embrace Your Excellence: A Psychopharmacology Primer and Mirror to the Soul and Escape into Excellence: Building a Foundation for Honest Decision-Making. References: The Four Agreements, Don Miguel Ruiz The Power of Myth, Joseph Campbell A New Kind of Science, Stephen Wolfram Resources: The Wizard of Oz, Alice in Wonderland, and Carpool Karaoke with Paul McCartney Questions? Comments? Recommend someone for an interview? Contact us [e-mail] or find us on twitter @twopillspodcast! Highlights (full transcript at www.twopillspodcast.com): My teaching strategies are related to reading apprenticeship. In reading apprenticeship, we use interactive keywords and think aloud's, think pair and share, questions, and we map things. Critical thinking skills are embedded in reading apprenticeship. It is so important that once a student leaves school, they have those tools in the real world. For those of you who are considering a career in Health Sciences, you can change your environment, use your degree for multiple reasons, you are not just boxed in. After teaching for a while, I realized I could be teaching the same few courses forever. After a while, you can't integrate new stuff. I ended up writing two textbooks. They're called “Embrace Your Excellence” and “Escape Into Excellence.” “Escape into Excellence” talks about ethics and how to develop critical-thinking skills. It uses real-life case studies. It takes you from the beginning about what is ethics, what are values, how do we learn our values-all the way full circle to passing and death. How do we stand in silence and honor the people in our lives we care about who are ready to pass? “Embrace Your Excellence” is a psychopharmacology book. It introduces people to mental health, mental health issues, the pharmacology involved, including opiates and hallucinogenics. It adds the holistic piece to it with real life student cases and students writing about their experiences. It helped create a full package that students like. A lot of it was written by students for students. When I wrote, “Escape into Excellence,” we determined that all author royalties would go back to charity. Education is so important. For both “Embrace Your Excellence” and “Escape into Excellence,” all author royalties go back to Santa Rosa Junior College Foundation to support education. The royalties of my children's values book, “The Adventures of Rosie Posie Papillion,” go to pap haven rescue. It's a heart project and labor of love to impact and give back. We had to learn these skills on the fly when we got out, when we read a book, and here is a textbook that schools can use to further that endeavor. One topic was IV therapy. I brought in empty vials and bags and tubing. I gave them a scenario that included stuffed animals like dinosaurs, poodles, and others. Each doll had a flash card around their neck with a scenario. It Incorporated education, pharmacology, and calculations. Each team had a team leader who read the case. Each team member then took one of the questions And explained the answer to the other students. Each team member had a teaching moment. It gives them confidence, practice speaking, and all in a peer environment that was safe. No one was judging them, no one giving them a certain number of points, and it was a very relaxed environment. They were able to do every sensory experience within that one exercise. It is applicable to any topic. Don’t ever be afraid to step into the unknown. Fear is the worst reason in the world to do somethi