Data Access & Manipulation in Python for Pharmacy Students (Filtering & Selecting Patient & Drug Data)

Data access and manipulation are essential skills for working with healthcare datasets. In pharmaceutical sciences, they are used to filter patient records, analyze drug data, and extract meaningful insights.

🔷 What is Data Access & Manipulation?

Data access means retrieving specific data, while manipulation means modifying or analyzing that data.

🔷 Accessing Data from Lists

doses = [500, 650, 400, 700]

print(doses[0])      # First dose
print(doses[-1])     # Last dose

🔷 Filtering Data from Lists

doses = [500, 650, 400, 700]

for d in doses:
    if d > 600:
        print("High dose:", d)

🔷 Accessing Dictionary Data

patient = {
    "name": "John",
    "age": 60,
    "dose": 650
}

print(patient["dose"])

🔷 Filtering Dictionary Data

if patient["dose"] > 600:
    print("High dose patient")

🔷 Working with Multiple Patient Records

patients = [
    {"name": "Alice", "dose": 500},
    {"name": "Bob", "dose": 700},
    {"name": "Charlie", "dose": 650}
]

for p in patients:
    if p["dose"] > 600:
        print("High dose:", p["name"])

🔷 Selecting Specific Data

names = []

for p in patients:
    names.append(p["name"])

print(names)

🔷 Modifying Data

for p in patients:
    p["dose"] += 50

print(patients)

💊 Pharma Application

• Identify high-dose patients
• Filter severe ADR cases
• Modify dosage for elderly patients

🧪 Mini Project: Clinical Data Filter

patients = [
    {"name": "Alice", "age": 65, "dose": 700},
    {"name": "Bob", "age": 40, "dose": 500}
]

for p in patients:
    if p["age"] > 60:
        p["dose"] -= 100
        print("Adjusted dose for:", p["name"])

🧠 Memory Tricks

• Access → Get data
• Filter → Select data
• Modify → Change data

🧪 Practice Exercise

Create a dataset and:

• Find patients with high dose
• Reduce dose for elderly patients
• Extract all patient names

📝 MCQs

1. Filtering means:
   a) Deleting data
   b) Selecting data
   c) Printing data
   d) Saving data
   Answer: b


2. Which structure stores patient records?
   a) List
   b) Dictionary
   c) Both
   d) None
   Answer: c


3. Which operation changes data?
   a) Access
   b) Filter
   c) Modify
   d) Print
   Answer: c

❓ FAQs

Why is data manipulation important?

It helps convert raw data into useful clinical insights.

Where is it used in pharmacy?

In ADR analysis, dose adjustment, and patient data evaluation.

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