pharmacy
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What is a pharmacy?
Pharmacy is the science and art involved with the preparation and standardization of drugs. It includes growing plants for drugs, synthesizing medicinal chemical compounds, and analyzing medicinal agents.
Pharmacists prepare drug dosage forms like tablets, capsules, and sterile solutions for injection. They also fill prescriptions from physicians, dentists, and veterinarians. In countries that require a license, pharmacists must graduate from a recognized pharmacy college, meet experience requirements, and pass a government-appointed pharmacy board exam.
Synonyms for pharmacy include drugstore and apothecary.
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Who works in a pharmacy?
A pharmacy employs various professionals and support staff to ensure its smooth operation. Pharmacists are central figures, responsible for dispensing medications, reviewing prescriptions, and ensuring patient safety. They are also qualified to advise patients. Pharmacy technicians assist pharmacists with tasks such as measuring medications and managing inventory. Some pharmacies may also employ pharmacy managers to oversee operations, as well as clerks and cashiers who handle sales and customer service.
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What do pharmacies provide to patients?
Pharmacies are vital in preparing and standardizing drugs. Their work includes sourcing medicinal plants, creating medicinal chemical compounds, and analyzing medicinal agents. Pharmacists prepare drug dosage forms like tablets, capsules, and sterile solutions, and they also fill prescriptions from doctors, dentists, and veterinarians. They sell and dispense drugs according to food and drug laws, following the standards set by the national pharmacopoeia, and must be licensed to practice pharmacy.
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Why do some medicines require a prescription?
Medicines sometimes require a prescription to ensure safe and effective use. Prescription requirements are put in place because some drugs can be harmful if misused, either due to overdose or side effects.
Before a new drug can be prescribed, it goes through testing on animals and trials with human volunteers and patients to identify its effects and limitations. Official bodies such as the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the U.S. supervise and check these efforts.
The sale of drugs that are not safe for self-medication is restricted to prescription only. These regulations are intended to ensure drugs are prescribed judiciously, and the public understands that misuse can have tragic consequences.
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What is an over-the-counter medicine?
An over-the-counter (OTC) medicine is available for purchase without a prescription. To change a drug's status to over-the-counter, the manufacturer can submit an "OTC drug review" to the FDA or provide new information via the new drug application process. The FDA then assesses the drug's safety, label clarity for consumer use, and the necessity of medical exams or lab tests for its long-term use. Since 1975, more than 100 drug ingredients and dosages have transitioned from prescription to over-the-counter status. Common OTC medications include pain relievers, cough medications, and laxatives.
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How do pharmacies help keep communities healthy?
Pharmacies support community health by ensuring people get the correct medications and dosages, and by offering important advice and information about medicines. While the role of compounding medicines has decreased since World War II, pharmacists still ensure the efficacy and quality of the medicinal products dispensed. Pharmacies also offer other services, such as vaccinations, health screenings, and disease management programs, which promote public health and well-being.
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pharmacy, the science and art concerned with the preparation and standardization of drugs. Its scope includes the cultivation of plants that are used as drugs, the synthesis of chemical compounds of medicinal value, and the analysis of medicinal agents. Pharmacists are responsible for the preparation of the dosage forms of drugs, such as tablets, capsules, and sterile solutions for injection. They compound physicians’, dentists’, and veterinarians’ prescriptions for drugs. The science that embraces knowledge of drugs with special reference to the mechanism of their action in the treatment of disease is pharmacology.
History of pharmacy
The beginnings of pharmacy are ancient. When the first person expressed juice from a succulent leaf to apply to a wound, this art was being practiced. In the Greek legend, Asclepius, the god of the healing art, delegated to Hygieia the duty of compounding his remedies. She was his apothecary or pharmacist. The physician-priests of Egypt were divided into two classes: those who visited the sick and those who remained in the temple and prepared remedies for the patients.
In ancient Greece and Rome and during the Middle Ages in Europe, the art of healing recognized a separation between the duties of the physician and those of the herbalist, who supplied the physician with the raw materials from which to make medicines. The Arabian influence in Europe during the 8th century ad, however, brought about the practice of separate duties for the pharmacist and physician. The trend toward specialization was later reinforced by a law enacted by the city council of Bruges in 1683, forbidding physicians to prepare medications for their patients. In America, Benjamin Franklin took a pivotal step in keeping the two professions separate when he appointed an apothecary to the Pennsylvania Hospital.
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The development of the pharmaceutical industry since World War II led to the discovery and use of new and effective drug substances. It also changed the role of the pharmacist. The scope for extemporaneous compounding of medicines was much diminished and with it the need for the manipulative skills that were previously applied by the pharmacist to the preparation of bougies, cachets, pills, plasters, and potions. The pharmacist continues, however, to fulfill the prescriber’s intentions by providing advice and information; by formulating, storing, and providing correct dosage forms; and by assuring the efficacy and quality of the dispensed or supplied medicinal product.
The practice of pharmacy
Education
The history of pharmaceutical education has closely followed that of medical education. As the training of the physician underwent changes from the apprenticeship system to formal educational courses, so did the training of the pharmacist. The first college of pharmacy was founded in the United States in 1821 and is now known as the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy and Science. Other institutes and colleges were established soon after in the United States, Great Britain, and continental Europe. Colleges of pharmacy as independent organizations or as schools of universities now operate in most developed countries of the world.
The course of instruction leading to a bachelor of science in pharmacy extends at least five years. The first and frequently the second year of training, embracing general education subjects, are often provided by a school of arts and sciences. Many institutions also offer graduate courses in pharmacy and cognate sciences leading to the degrees of master of science and doctor of philosophy in pharmacy, pharmacology, or related disciplines. These advanced courses are intended especially for those who are preparing for careers in research, manufacturing, or teaching in the field of pharmacy.
Since the treatment of the sick with drugs encompasses a wide field of knowledge in the biological and physical sciences, an understanding of these sciences is necessary for adequate pharmaceutical training. The basic five-year curriculum in the colleges of pharmacy of the United States, for example, embraces physics, chemistry, biology, bacteriology, physiology, pharmacology, and many other specialized courses. As the pharmacist is engaged in a business as well as a profession, special training is provided in merchandising, accounting, computer techniques, and pharmaceutical jurisprudence.
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Licensing and regulation
To practice pharmacy in those countries in which a license is required, an applicant must be qualified by graduation from a recognized college of pharmacy, meet specific requirements for experience, and pass an examination conducted by a board of pharmacy appointed by the government.
Pharmacy laws generally include the regulations for the practice of pharmacy, the sale of poisons, the dispensing of narcotics, and the labeling and sale of dangerous drugs. The pharmacist sells and dispenses drugs within the provisions of the food and drug laws of the country in which he practices. These laws recognize the national pharmacopoeia (which defines products used in medicine, their purity, dosages, and other pertinent data) as the standard for drugs. The World Health Organization of the United Nations began publishing the Pharmacopoeia Internationalis in the early 1950s. Its purpose is to standardize drugs internationally and to supply standards, strengths, and nomenclature for those countries that have no national pharmacopoeia.