Education pharmacists

Carol had hired a local clinical pharmacist who had expertise in ambulatory care as a consultant to assist with the pharmacists education and skills development. The clinical consultant facilitated the case discussions. The cases that were developed for this program required pharmacists to assess and modify patients dietary habits and activity levels. Also, they needed to identify and develop plans for resolving drug therapy problems. They practiced writing recommendations to physicians on the physician communication form. 

Improving and assuring quality of practitioners pharmacist education... 

Provision of quality educational services in pharmacy and related areas is one of the core businesses of SHPA and an area of ongoing expansion and development. In recent times, the focus of these services has broadened from predominantly addressing the needs of hospital pharmacists, to incorporating nursing and community pharmacist education. With the inclusion of pharmacy technicians in our membership starting in 2000, educational needs of this group will be more formally addressed. 

While the principal value of the book is for the professional chemist or student of chemistry, it should also be of value to many people not especially educated as chemists. Workers in the natural sciences—physicists, mineralogists, biologists, pharmacists, engineers, patent attorneys, and librarians—are often called upon to solve problems dealing with the properties of chemical products or materials of construction. Eor such needs this compilation supplies helpful information and will serve not only as an economical substitute for the costly accumulation of a large library of monographs on specialized subjects, but also as a means of conserving the time required to search for... 

A cancer patient may encounter many different health care professionals phlebotomists, pathologists, surgeons, medical and radiation oncologists, physician assistants, pharmacists, nurses, counselors, dieticians, social workers, and chaplains all may be involved with a single patient. Each one plays an important role in care of the cancer patient. The pharmacist s role may include education of patients and family members, education of staff about new agents and safety issues, preparation of therapies, resolution of reimbursement issues, development of order sets, and participation in clinical trials. Each patient should have access to an interdisciplinary team to assist him or her during treatment. 

Pharmacists, physicians, physician assistants, and nurse practitioners can earn valuable continuing education credit based on the content of Pharmacotherapy Principles Practice. For details visit www.pharmacotherapyprinciples.com... 

Self-assessment questions and answers for each chapter. Located in the Online Learning Center, these questions are designed to evaluate student learning and may be used to obtain approximately 170 hours of continuing education credit for licensed pharmacists, nurse practitioners, physicians, and physician assistants. 

Dietary supplements may be less expensive than prescription medications. However, dietary supplements are not guaranteed to be equivalent in safety and efficacy. Unfortunately, many consumers believe that dietary supplements are as safe and effective as prescription medications. As pharmacists, our role is to educate patients on the fallacies of dietary supplements. 

Study Commission on Pharmacy. The content of pharmacy education. In Pharmacists for the future the report of the Study Commission on Pharmacy commissioned by the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy. Ann Arbor, MI Health Administration Press, 1975, p. 128. 

More progressive MCOs have moved to concurrent DUR, in which a pharmacist can screen for drug incompatibilities, duplicate prescriptions, and other problems before dispensing the medication. Obviously, the prevention of problems or the intervention directly with patients is attractive. While the identification of drug-related problems is vital to managing pharmacotherapy, intervention with the prescriber or patient also is required. The most common approach to intervening with prescribers and patients is through educational activities. 

Pharmacy educators are poised to adapt to the changes in practice that will result from the widespread adoption of drug therapies based on pharma-cogenomics. Pharmacy education has been in a constant state of evolution since the early twentieth century, when the education of pharmacists consisted almost entirely of basic chemistry applied to those compounds thought to be useful as medications. At that time, many academic pharmacy programs were housed in departments of chemistry. Schools and colleges of pharmacy now are independent academic units, many of which are fully integrated into major academic health science centers. 

The initial education of pharmacists requires four years of study within the professional program. At least two years of college are required to enter the professional program. Once licensed, pharmacists are required to continue their education through conferences and other activities that reflect the... 

Pharmacists also perform an important role as educators of patients (Fleischer, 1999). This is a safety role, because many drugs are safe if used as intended but unsafe if used differently from the way they are intended. Pharmacists routinely inform patients about the need to ingest medications at certain times of the day to ensure steady blood levels. They caution about drowsiness or other manageable side effects. Psycho-social issues are also important in patient education by pharmacists, because every patient develops a unique medication use behavior, and sometimes these behaviors can interfere with the effectiveness of drug therapy (Bloom, 1996). 

The Important Role of Pharmacists in a Complex Risk-Management System Managing the Risks from Medical Product Use by Focusing on Patient Education, Monitoring, and Adverse Event Reporting... 

Incorrect drug use occurs because essential information is not properly communicated -or is incompletely or incorrectly understood. Two results of not properly educating patients about their medicahons are mismedicahon and noncompliance, both of which cause unnecessary illness and health costs. Because patients usually interact more frequently with pharmacists than with their physicians, pharmacists are well positioned to monitor pahents for mismedicahon and noncompliance. Pharmacists can ensure that a pahent is taking their medication correctly and can help reduce unnecessary human suffering and increasing healthcare costs. 

The FDA is involved in a number of initiatives to increase patient education about the proper use of medications. These initiatives should help pharmacists improve patient education and help prevent incorrect drug use. 

Pahents will need to know more, about the risks — as well as the benefits — of their medicahons. For these reasons, a greater role for pharmacists is anticipated in improving communicahon with patients, providing proper patient education, monitoring the use of medicahons, and reporhng adverse events resulting from their use. 

What area of pharmacy practice has the opportunity of using the scientific education and training as much as pharmacists involved in individualizing patient care through extemporaneous compounding The pharmaceutical sciences, especially chemistry and pharmaceutics, serve as the foundation for pharmacists ability to formulate specific dosage forms to meet patients needs. 

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