Course overview
The aim of this course is for the pharmacist to integrate the skills and knowledge gained in previous modules and demonstrate practical application in a practice setting. The pharmacist should gain experience in a specific therapeutic area and demonstrate the ability to provide a complete clinical pharmacy service to patients and staff in this area. The student will undertake this course in a practice setting, comprising at least 160 hours. The medicine management clerkship will provide the mechanism whereby students are given experiential education in several important areas of clinical pharmacy practice. Pathophysiology of disease states, pharmacotherapy and drug review including dosage calculations, adverse reactions, drug interactions, relevant pharmacokinetics, alternative therapies and monitoring parameters. Participation of medical ward rounds, medication review rounds, patient counselling sessions, case seminars and hospital in-service education programs.
Course learning outcomes
- Further develop the skills and knowledge of a pharmacy practitioner, integrating didactic concepts in pathophysiology, pharmacology and therapeutics with clinical experience
- Gain further understanding of patients problems and their use of medicines
- Gain experience as a pharmacist in a Health Care Team
- Engage in patient monitoring to ensure that medications are administered as prescribed, identify adverse effects from the medication, potential interactions and identify whether patients satisfactorily achieve the expected results of drug therapy
- Review laboratory data for the purpose of monitoring drug therapy and identify when drug therapy may be effecting lab results
- Instruct patients about discharge medications including, appropriate use, storage, and information on side effects when warranted
- Retrieve information regarding current drug therapy from the clinical literature and present recommendations based on evaluation of this literature