Veterinary practitioners

The concept of mass medication can hardly be accepted outside the agricultural field, but the experience of veterinary practitioners who treat large herds or flocks of animals fully supports this concept, especially in those areas of animal management where it is essential to keep all the animals at a level of optimal productivity (8). 

A 25-year-old veterinary practitioner developed an inflammatory demyelinating process affecting the... 

The controls over retail sale of medicines do not apply to the above practitioners. A doctor or dentist may offer to supply or sell prescription-only medicines to a patient or patient s carer (and similar arrangements apply to veterinary practitioners/surgeons for animals or herds under their care). Supplies may be obtained from pharmacies by way of wholesale dealing and requested via a written requisition. 

All requisitions for Schedule 2 and Schedule 3 controlled drugs against which supplies are made by pharmacists from a community pharmacy are now sent to the PPD (or equivalent) at the end of the month (in a similar way to NHS prescriptions see Section 3.3.8). However, this is not for reimbursement (as the pharmacist or pharmacy technician will have charged the recipient to cover the cost of the medication and supply), but for monitoring purposes. In addition, the pharmacy should keep a photocopy of the requisition. This requirement does not apply to requisitions by veterinary practitioners or veterinary surgeons. 

Prior to 1994, only doctors, dentists and veterinary practitioners were allowed to prescribe medicinal products in the United Kingdom. That year the law was changed to enable district nurses, midwives and health visitors to prescribe from a limited formulary of dressings, appliances and some medicines. This formulary of medicines was extended in 2002. 

They may only be sold or supplied from a registered pharmacy, by or under supervision of a pharmacist in accordance with the prescription of a doctor, dentist or veterinary practitioner or other qualified prescriber. Nurse independent prescribers, pharmacist independent prescribers and supplementary prescribers can write prescriptions for POM. Given below are examples of the types of drug that are POM ... 

In veterinary medicine, the Hst of inhalation anesthetics generally includes only two agents, halothane [151 -67-7] and methoxyflurane [76-38-0]. Although ether (ethyl ether) is used extensively in experimental work with laboratory animals, the risks associated with its use and the advantages of halothane and methoxyflurane have removed ether from general use by the practitioner. 

In the veterinary as in the human patient, neoplasms are often metastatic and widely disseminated throughout the body. Surgery and irradiation are limited in use to weU-defined neoplastic areas and, therefore, chemotherapy is becoming more prevalent in the management of the veterinary cancer victim (see Chemotherapeutics, anticancer). Because of the expense and time involved, such management must be restricted to individual animals for which a favorable risk—benefit evaluation can be made and treatment seems appropriate to the practitioner and the owner. In general, treatment must be viewed not as curative, but as palliative. 

Figure 4 shows the functional units of the Center of Veterinary Medicine. Many pharmacy practitioners are also involved in the drugs controlled by this unit of FDA and may have occasion to communicate with it. 

BASIC PRINCIPLES OF VETERINARY PHARMACOLOGY FOR EQUINE PRACTITIONERS 3... 

Until 1998, the Medicines Commission consisted of an executive board, a chairman, four working parties and outside experts and consultants. Except for one general practitioner, all members are professors at different Belgian universities and are experts in either toxicopharmacology, clinical medicine, drug analysis and galenical pharmaceutics or veterinary medicine. The Secretariat of the Commission falls under the responsibility of the Inspector General, who is a pharmacist. In 1994 the inspectorate consisted in total of 28 civil servants (in 1982 the number was 37). 

The Executive Board is the advisory body of the Medicines Commission. It consists of a chairman, a vice chairman and eight other members. The chairman is a professor in medicines and the vice chairman is a professor in pharmacy. One of the members is a general practitioner, four are professors in pharmacology with a specialisation in pharmacognosy and pharmacology and the other two are professors in galenics. The last is a professor in veterinary science. Nominations for these posts are made through a Royal Decree. 

Establishments subject to licensing are defined as premises of distributors, manufacturers (including those who package and label), wholesalers, importers and testers. Pharmacists, medical practitioners and veterinary drug handlers are... 

Prescription medicines These can only be sold or supplied to the public on a written prescription from a medical practitioner, dentist, veterinary surgeon, or other professional such as a midwife or optometrist under restrictions specified in the legislation. 

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