Humans learn from cradle to grave. This is really nice saying and we have to follow it intentionally or non-intentionally. There are many things that one can learn. First that makes us human and second that makes us a successful and ethical human. First is called the behavioral education. This includes how we deal with others and second is education of the world. The most noble of these is the lifesaving education. The pharmacy is one of the major pillars of the lifesaving education.
If you have the pharmacy education, you will be called pharmacist. Pharmacist education is really necessary in all fields of pharmacy. Pharmacists are becoming stronger day by day and started lifting more and more weight of the heath care responsibilities. There are many different fields where pharmacists must have expertise on the other hand they must have expertise in just one field and it depends upon the type of the work the pharmacist is choosing. Some of the major fields where pharmacist education is needed are given here.
· General pharmacist education
· Community pharmacist education
· Hospital pharmacist education
· Industrial Pharmacist education
· Compounding pharmacist education
· Consultant pharmacist education
· Internet pharmacist education
· Military pharmacist education
· Veterinary pharmacist education
· Pharmacists research education
General pharmacist education:
There are many general things that pharmacists have to learn as an overview. They will have to learn the pharmaceutics, physiology anatomy, statistics, pharmacology, pharmacognosy, pathology, community, Quality control, hospital, clinical and biopharmaceutics. These areas are must for the pharmacist education. They all have their own importance in the course of the doctor of pharmacy. Pharmaceutics will allow the pharmacists to learn what are the components of the dosage form (Dosage from is the drug delivery system) and also how the dosage form is prepared. Physiology will allow the pharmacists to know how the body works so they can predict what is wrong, if the functions are not normal. Anatomy allows the pharmacists to know what are the shape and size of the body parts so that if there is increase in size of there is a change in the structure or color pharmacists can detect them. This will also allow them to detect the drug interactions as the DI cause the skin redness or skin yellowing because of the liver function alteration and also because the skin is detector of the body diseases.
Statistics will allow the pharmacist to become professionals in product marketing and product manufacturing as some of the pharmacists will have to launch their own products. Pharmacology is the most important subjects for the pharmacists today as this will allow the pharmacists to know what the physician in prescribing and what is need to be prescribed. Pharmacognosy will allow the pharmacists to know from where the medicine is coming and what the natural sources of the medicine are. Pathology allows the pharmacist to know where the problem is occurring in the body. In some disease the physician take the allergic reaction of the drug as diseases so pharmacist will have to tackle the issue. Community is the subject that is learned by the pharmacists to know what people think about the treatment and also how to convince them to prevent the disease in them and also how to save them after disease has occurred in the community or even a person. Quality control is the area where the pharmacist will have to learn the facts like what are the features of the medicine that make it suitable for the patient use. Some pharmacists will have to manage the medicine at the hospital so they will need to learn the skills of the hospital medicine management. Clinical is a subject that allow pharmacist to see what the brand names of different drugs are and how they must be used in the prescription. Biopharmaceutics is the subject that will deal with the dose calculation for the individual patient and the general dose for the patients.
Community pharmacist education:
This is the specialized education field in the pharmacy. The pharmacists are needed to have this education because they will have to interact with the patients for the patient counseling and communication. In world most of the pharmacists are present in the community pharmacy. This is way that allows them to interact directly with the patients. There is a setup in the community, called the community pharmacy. This is the setup that includes doctors, patients and pharmacists. The doctors will diagnose the disease and prescribe the related medicine to the patients.
The patients will then come to the pharmacist. The pharmacists will check whether this is the best medicine for the disease and also check for any drug interaction and allergy or even overdose. Here the pharmacist will need all the knowledge that he gained from the pharmacology, clinical, Biopharmaceutics and community pharmacy education. They will check the drug interaction by the use of pharmacology. They will check if the best brand is prescribed by the use of clinical knowledge. They will check for the overdose by the Biopharmaceutics. They will also have to make sure that patient will take the medicine seriously and this comes under the heading of community knowledge.
Hospital pharmacist education:
Hospital is the area where the pharmacists play a really crucial role. The pharmacists here do many jobs like managing, sales, purchase, demands, supply, patients care, new medicine introduction, compounding. They will have to manage the medicine. There are two types of pharmacies in the hospital named as main pharmacy and satellite pharmacy. The main pharmacy deals under the pharmacist. It will do sales and purchase for all the hospital, and also supply the medicine to the satellite pharmacies. The satellite pharmacy is the pharmacy like setup attached with each department of hospital and it also work under the control of the pharmacists.
It will send the medicine to the wards and individual patient’s rooms. The main pharmacy will have all the administrative privileges and the satellite pharmacies work under the control of main pharmacy. The pharmacists will also do the patient care in the hospital by caring for the patients like what they do in the hospital is just like what they do in the community pharmacy that is counseling and communication. This way they are going to need the knowledge of hospital, quality control, community, statistics and clinical pharmacy.
Industrial Pharmacist education:
There is no concept of the heath care profession without medicines. There will be no medicines if there is no industry making the medicines. The medicines are made by the pharmaceutical industries and all of these come under the control of the pharmacists. The pharmacists will have to do quality checks, make medicines in bulk, do advertisement, sale the medicine and also make new medicines. The knowledge of industry, statistics, pharmaceutics and quality control is needed in caser of the industrial pharmacy. The industry will tell the pharmacists how to work in the industries like what are the SOPs that are called the standard operating procedures.
The statistic knowledge is needed as the sales and the purchase of the medicine is to be maintained. This is also needed because the advertisement really needs the statistical skills. The pharmaceutics knowledge is really needed as the pharmacist will have to make the medicines and the medicines cannot be made without the pharmaceutics knowledge. This includes the excipients that will suit the specific drug and how drug will be delivered. The quality control is most crucial subject in the industrial pharmacy as we have to pass the batch of hundreds and thousands of tablets or capsules etc. The quality of the medicine is to be maintained equally starting from the first batch to the 1000th batch and the batch that is being prepared.
Compounding pharmacist education:
The compounding is specialty of the pharmacists as the nurse and doctors do not have skills needed to do the compounding in sterile environment. There are many apparatuses used for it like the compounding done in laminar flow hood etc. Some preparations like the IV admixtures are really important preparations and are made in the sterile environment. Two different compounds are mixed and made for the administration in really less time like within 24 hours. Some topical preparations are also made in the local pharmacies.
The pharmacists sometimes also need to make the preparations small. There are cases when the medicine comes in large drums and boxes so the pharmacists will have to the patient medicine according to their need. This is really an important job if you are dealing with the syrups that contain alcohol like in the cough syrups. Some people also use the barbiturates and benzodiazepines as narcotic agent. This is why the compounding pharmacist education is needed. The doctors and nurses cannot perform this compounding as better as the pharmacists can do.
Consultant pharmacist education:
The pharmacists should have a really good personality as they will have to convince patients to save themselves and take the medicine at all stages of life. This is the job of the pharmacist to do consultaion all the time while he is practicing but there are some stages where the pharmacist will have to do just one thing and that is consultation. This is like couching the people for their health problems. If a person is ill and he has some long-term problem, he can ask the consultant pharmacist whether the medicine he is using is really effective or there are some other medicines that can do the better job as the doctors will just diagnose and give a general therapy but the pharmacist is expert in medicine and the effects caused by the medicine so the pharmacists can be considered as the best consultant of the medicine related issues. The consultant pharmacy education might look really simple but this is really hard as one have to judge the patents and then will have to council the patient. The pharmacists should be aware of communicating skills and all the things that a patient can ask.
Internet pharmacist education:
There are some pharmacists like us that work online and do article writing, website designing and other activities like that. The internet pharmacist education includes all the things that can be demanded like the pharmaceutics, physiology anatomy, statistics, pharmacology, pharmacognosy, pathology, community, Quality control, hospital, clinical and biopharmaceutics. This is the place where you can write about everything. Here you can also start an online consultation service or you can check the prescriptions online and guide the patients. This is really a vast field.
Military pharmacist education:
The pharmacists can also join the military. This is because the military is always in demand of the health care workers and the pharmacists can do any job there like the clinical role, consultation role, and the other medical roles needed in the military. There are many war weapons handling that need pharmacists. This includes the war gases that are nerve agent. The pharmacists are aware of their effects and how to treat the effects. They also strive to make now weapons like these.
Veterinary pharmacist education:
The pharmacist who has done just doctor of pharmacy has knowledge about the medicines that work on the humans. The humans are the main focus of the pharmacy education but if someone wants to do some extra work he can also learn how the medicines work in the animals and can work hand in hand with the veterinary doctors. They have authority to do their practice relating to the humans as well as animals. This is really good job as these days there is demand of food everywhere. The farms animals are always prone to disease. The veterinary doctors can diagnose the disease and can even prescribe medicine but they are not able to understand if the medicines are really working in right fashion. This is best done by the pharmacists so they are also best in this job.
Pharmacist research education:
There are lots of institutes that allow the pharmacists to study further and do research. The pharmacists can do research in any medical field that relate to the medicine. The pharmacists can introduce new medicines. They can invent new medicines as well as new ways to administer the medicines. They can make new dosage forms. There are many pharmacists that have done really great achievements that we do not even consider now. The formula of the Coca-Cola is made by a pharmacist. This way if you are a pharmacist, you can make new products with your knowledge. This is best if you do research and make a pharmaceutical product but this is not all as you can make new creams, emulsions and other non-medicated products that you can make better.
You must know and believe that if you are pharmacists, you are something really better and you can do all medical related tasks, just the thing needed is pharmacist education and skills. Be proud of being a pharmacist………………
