Main description:

The fifth edition of Pharmaceutical Practice has been totally overhauled and restructured to bring the contents completely up to date and to reflect emerging new roles for pharmacists both within the traditional employment areas of hospital and community pharmacy, as well as other developing roles supporting the public health agenda, governance, risk management, prescribing and pharmacoeconomics. It covers a wide range of subjects relevant to pharmacy practice, including communication skills, managing a business, quality assurance, dispensing, calculations, packaging, storage and labeling of medicines, sterilization, prescriptions, hospital-based services, techniques and treatments, adverse drug reactions, cost-benefit, and medicines management.

Contents:

Section 1: Pharmacy practice and society

• The role of pharmacy in healthcare
• Models of pharmacy practice within healthcare systems
• Socio-behavioural aspects of health and illness
• Socio-behavioural aspects of treatment with medicines
• Pharmacy and public health
• WHO and the essential medicines concept

Section 2: Governance and good professional pharmaceutical practice

• Governance - an overview
• Risk management
• Continuing professional development and fitness to practice
• Audit
• Ethics
• Communication skills for the pharmacist
• Relationship with other members of the healthcare team
• Record keeping.

Section 3: Pharmacy prescribing and selection of medicines

• Access to medicines and prescribing - introduction
• The prescribing process and evidence-based medicine
• Formularies
• Drug evaluation and pharmacoeconomics
• Complementary/alternative medicine
• Prescribing for minor ailments
• Information retrieval

Section 4: Dispensing and related pharmaceutical practice activities

• The prescription
• Dispensing techniques (compounding and good practice)
• Pharmaceutical calculations
• Packaging
• Labelling of dispensed medicines
• Production of sterile products
• Solutions
• Suspensions
• Emulsions
• External preparations
• Suppositories and pessaries
• Powders and granules
• Oral unit dosage forms
• Inhaled route
• Parenteral products
• Ophthalmic products
• Specialized services
• Parenteral nutrition and dialysis
• Radiopharmacy
• Storage of medicines and waste disposal
• Communication skills - role of the pharmacist in giving advice and information

Section 5: Pharmacy services and monitoring the medicine-taking patient

• Collection and delivery services
• Concordance
• Monitoring the patient
• Services for vulnerable patients
• Substance use and misuse

Appendices

• Medical abbreviations
• Latin terms and abbreviations
• Systems of weights and measures
• Presentation skills
• Key references and further reading

Index