INTRODUCTION

Who are you?

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Pharmacy

The art of preparing and dispensing drugs. A place where drugs are sold; a drugstore. Also called apothecary.

The health profession concerned with the discovery,

development, production, and distribution of drugs.

Drugs are substances (other than devices) used to diagnose, prevent, cure, or relieve the symptoms of disease. For relations to closely allied fields. See also Medicine; Pharmaceutical chemistry; Pharmacognosy;

Pharmacology.

The mortar and pestle, an internationally recognized symbol to represent the pharmacy profession

Pharmacy derives its name from the Greek

root pharmakon, a drug. Pharmacy is

concerned with the manufacture, formulation,

quality control, and dispensing of medicaments

used to treat disease. The majority of modern medicaments consist of tablets, capsules, and injections, all produced under stringent conditions.

Pharmacy (from the Greek 'pharmakon' = drug) is the health profession that links the health sciences with the

chemical sciences, and it is charged with

ensuring the safe and effective use of

medication.

The word pharmacy is derived from its root word pharma which was a term used since the 14001600s. In addition to pharma responsibilities, the pharma offered general medical advice and a range of services that are now performed solely by other specialist practitioners, such as surgery and midwifery. The pharma (as it was referred to) often operated through a retail shop which, in addition to ingredients for medicines, sold tobacco and patent medicines. The pharmas also used many other herbs not listed.

Science dealing with collection, preparation, and standardization of drugs. Pharmacists, who must earn a qualifying degree, prepare and dispense prescribed medications. They formerly mixed and measured drug products from raw materials according to doctors' prescriptions, and they are still responsible for formulating, storing, and providing correct dosages of medicines, now usually produced by pharmaceutical companies as premeasured tablets or capsules.

They also advise patients on the use of both prescription and over-the-counter drugs. Laws regulating the pharmaceutical industry are based on the national pharmacopoeia, which outlines the purity and dosages of numerous medicinal products

Pharmaceutical Education

Pharmaceutical education began in the United States with the founding of the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy (now the University of the Sciences in Philadelphia) in 1821. The term"college" was intended at first to suggest only a society rather than a school, but the Philadelphia College offered lectures almost from the start. Local societies of pharmacy, also calling themselves colleges, were formed in Boston, New York City, Baltimore, Cincinnati, Chicago, and St. Louis, and all of them sooner or later engaged in pharmaceutical instruction.

By 1900 about sixty programs were or had been in operation. The program of instruction in these institutions, especially in the good number that were private and proprietary, was indeed meager, consisting mainly of a series of lectures in the evening in rented rooms.

In 1868 the University of Michigan embarked upon a full program of scientific training in pharmacy, eventually developing a full-time, day program of two years. The University of Wisconsin followed suit in 1883 and nine years later it pioneered in offering a four-year program leading to a bachelor's degree. As noted, the length and the curricular requirements took off from there, reflecting new developments in the pharmaceutical sciences and the changing professional role of the pharmacist, both in and beyond the drugstore.

The curriculum changes demanded by the doctorate included more attention to the humanities and emphasized clinical pharmacy and relatively new sciences like pharmacokinetics and pharmacotherapeutics. Externship programs in community, industrial, hospital, and clinical pharmacy became part of the curriculum.

A hospital pharmacy includes special administrative features, provision of drugs for nursing stations, manufacturing of pharmaceutical preparations, teaching of nurses and medical and pharmacy interns, service to the hospital committee on pharmacy and therapeutics, preparation and revision of a hospital formulary, and monitoring the drug regimen of the individual patient (clinical pharmacy). The pharmacist may have charge of investigational drugs, radioactive pharmaceuticals, medical and surgical sterile supplies, and gaseous drugs for inhalation therapy.

Usually only a tiny part of the product is active drug, the rest being the excipient which provides an appropriate vehicle for delivery to the patient. Many old-fashioned forms of medication such as mixtures, tinctures, decoctions, elixirs, emulsions, and syrups have now virtually disappeared, reducing the requirement for extemporaneous manufacture of products by dispensing pharmacists.