PHARM.D: HOW CAN THEY REDEFINE CLINICAL ACTIVITIES IN HOSPITALS ?

PHARM.D: HOW CAN THEY REDEFINE CLINICAL ACTIVITIES IN HOSPITALS ?

LEVIN THOMAS

SENIOR LECTURER, AL-SHIFA COLLEGE OF PHARMACY

The Pharm.D programme in India was introduced for meeting the requirements of the evergreen sector of pharmacy i.e. pharmacy practice and to overcome the problems being faced by the Indian pharmacy graduates and post graduates in practising pharmacy profession in foreign countries.

Up till now in India, in most of the hospital settings, the profession of pharmacy has been cornered to mere dispensing of drugs. Whereas in foreign countries, the pharmacists contribute to the patient care in hospitals in a much broader manner with respect to clinical and research activities,

With about 200 and as much as 750 Pharm.D students set to graduate in 2014 and 2016 respectively in India, there needs to be a clear and fast paced transition in the role of a pharmacist from compounding and dispensing to pharmaceutical care.

The didactic curriculum spread over a period of 5 years provides the Pharm.D students with a strong educational base for the clinical component of the program and the skills required in the clinical pharmacy practice. The postings of Pharm.D students in the clinical wards on a rotation basis, drug information services and community pharmacy services as a part of their curriculum provides students with ample opportunities to apply the knowledge acquired in the classroom to the practice of the pharmacy in a variety of patient care settings.

With an in depth knowledge in pharmacotherapeutics combined with the skills acquired by the students during their course, they are in a position to refine the drug therapy offered to the patients by applying evidence based principles to the pharmacotherapy. The Pharm.D professionals have a lot to offer in the speciality services of the hospital such as in psychiatry, oncology, nutrition, ambulatory care, paediatric and geriatric care etc. In these speciality services, they can play an important role in identifying medication errors, minimising/avoiding drug interactions, dose adjustments/calculations in hepatic and renal diseases, carrying out therapeutic drug monitoring for optimization of drug therapy, pharmacoeconomic considerations in the selection of drugs, disseminating pharmaceutical information to other health care staffs and in the research activities of the concerned specialities. 

With study of subjects such as pharmaco-epidemiology, biostatics and clinical research, the Pharm.D students can help in establishing a well structured pharmaco-epidemiological study (study of impact of drugs on a larger scale) and clinical trials in a hospital setup. Adverse drug reactions (ADR) is one of the major causes of mortality in many countries. As the number of new drugs and new drug combination approvals is scaling in the Indian market, there is an increased need of ADR reporting from the hospital settings for a wider collection of data. The Pharm.D students with a thorough foundation in pharmacology and pharmacotherapeutics are in a suitable position to carry pharmacovigilance in the right direction in India.

Pharm. D graduates can also take up the task of restructuring the community and hospital pharmacy activities from mere compounding and dispensing to providing specialised activities such as patient counselling, drug and poison information services, patient information leaflets, studying the outcome of drugs etc. to enhance the professional outlook of pharmacist among the public and health care professionals.

With the first batch of Indian Pharm.D students set to graduate in 2014, the pharmacy practice wing is expecting them to bring such major positive renovations in pharmaceutical activities of the hospital.