Demand Of Pharmacists In Medical Sector. Getnews
Tuesday 25 September 20120 comments
The line between the roles of pharmacists and physicians
has for a very long time been thinned by physicians who fully assume
the roles both prescription and dispensing of drugs to their patients.
But with medicine turning into a full time livelihood earner for most
medical practitioners, so it is not entirely wrong for doctors to practice
both prescription and dispensing of drugs especially within the private
practice.Infact, some doctors are allowed to do so within certain jurisdictions.
However self interests say financial for instance
have been known to arise within this practice. Some doctors have been
known to exaggerate the seriousness of patients’ conditions with a
malicious aim of selling more medications to patients. With most patients
putting cost-effective medication and avoidance of unnecessary medication
a priority, the need for separation between the area of prescription
and that of dispensation has grown tremendously.
This has necessitated a huge campaign in many countries
for a complete separation of the two. In Korea for instance this
campaign has already been a huge success. In other jurisdictions like
the US, pharmacists and physicians are regulated separately and it not
uncommon in these places to find that only pharmacists may supply scheduled
pharmaceuticals to the public and in no way can pharmacists form any
form of business partnership with doctors. This new separations has
increased the need of pharmacists in the medicine field more than ever
before.
Today’s health seekers are also increasingly resulting
to health care services that are offered outside of institutions such
as hospitals and clinics. With this new trend, pharmacists are increasingly
finding themselves picking the roles of prescription for the majority
of drugs except for controlled drugs especially in cases where patients
are unable to see their doctor as in the case where they are far from
home or the doctor is away. Consultant pharmacists who customarily operated
from nursing homes are now expanding into direct consultation with patients.
There is also a growing increase on emphasized patient
care skills with a particular emphasis on particular medication therapy
management (MTM).Pharmacists therefore are not only dispensing
drugs but are also going further to provide specialized clinical pharmacy
amongst them drug product selection, creation of a drug therapy plan
for patients and review of all prior prescribed medication before dispensation.
The review process may involve procedures like evaluation of the appropriateness
of the drug, dose route, frequency of use, duration of use, drug interactions
with the patient’s body, adverse drug reactions and assessment of
patient drug allergies.
These kinds of practices professional referred to
as pharmacotherapy have heightened the role of pharmacists within the
medical sector. Another very interesting area in pharmacy that has turned
pharmacists into hot cakes is compounding pharmacy.Todays patients are
increasingly becoming sensitive to drugs and the desire to transform
drugs to not only healing chemical substances but also patient friendly
and appealing in colour, taste and shape.
This need has turned the area of compounding pharmacy
very demanding with today’s drugs being transformed into appealing
forms like lollipops, chewing gums, juices, cookies and many other very
friendly consumable forms. Patients with difficulties swallowing pills,
injections or other conventionally harsh forms of drugs have found dosage
friendly courtesy of compounding pharmacy. The field of pharmacy has
tremendously evolved with new fields like clinical pharmacy, ambulatory
care pharmacy, internet pharmacy, military pharmacy and nuclear pharmacy
coming up; this too has heightened the need of pharmacists in the medical sector more than ever before.
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