Pharmacovigilance education vital: Prof
Published on: Wednesday, October 29, 2014
KOTA KINABALU: Pharmacovigilance education is very vital today as proper medication safety plays an important role in ensuring patient therapeutic outcomes; hence trained pharmacists' role is vital in this regard all over the world, according to Professor Cheung Hon-Yeung of the Department of Biomedical Sciences, City University of Hong Kong."With better well-defined trainings and strategies implemented, students admitted to pharmacy programmes should be equipped with more competitive and moral strengths, influential leadership roles to improve society," he said on the importance of pharmacy students need to be adequately trained and exposed to the challenges in pharmacovigilance. .The worldwide increasing trend of self-medication, particularly in developing countries without health insurance coverage for most people, is associated with a large number of complications.
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Any unwanted negative consequence after the administration of a medication is termed as Adverse Drug Reaction (ADR). Trained pharmacists are expected to prevent this anywhere in the world.The surveillance or prevention of ADR is known as pharmacovigilance.In some countries, ADR is becoming serious, even leading to death of patients.Unlike busy doctors or their nurses, drug information service is a service that must be performed by pharmacists to provide accurate information and consultation.
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"This is a good reason why dispensing of medicine should be left to pharmacists, because some doctors' prescription service, some medicine given are not always accompanied by comprehensive labelling of drug information," Professor Cheung said.Hence, the role of pharmacists is very important to ensure that the goals of treatment and the correct use of the prescribed drugs.
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For example, noncompliance to antibiotic therapy such as misuse of antibiotics, including failure to complete therapy, skipping of doses, or reuse of leftover antibiotics has led to a significant percentage of medical admissions that were actually deemed preventable, burdening overloaded hospitals.Patient counselling by pharmacists ensures the safe and effective use of medicine when compared to self-medication which is presumed to be widely practiced around the world.Self-medication can be defined as the use of drugs to treat self-diagnosed disorders or symptoms, or the intermittent or continued use of a prescribed drug for chronic or recurrent disease or symptoms.Pharmacist-led face-to-face counselling can have a positive impact on patients' medication adherence and lifestyle modification.In Malaysia, pharmacists are expected to ensure that all cases of ADR are reported to the Malaysian Adverse Drug Reaction Advisory Committee (MADRAC) for further action.Drug information services have become an integral part of community pharmacy practice.In providing information to consumers with prescription, pharmacists have to fulfil the minimum practice standards, such as information request (questions pharmacists should ask the patients or customers) and information provision (information on medicine that pharmacists should give to the patients).According to Sabah Pharmaceutical Society President Susan Pan and Community Pharmacist Yee That Hian, patients have a right to information and understanding on their drugs which should be clearly labelled properly."Pharmaceutical care practice has been the increasing worldwide trend in the pharmacy profession. Preparedness in pharmacy education should be carefully planned to support this globalization trend."Professor Cheung said that important breakthroughs in pharmaceutical research, contemporary trends in pharmaceutical education and people's expectation for tertiary education from the view of local society or country in recent years are very important to set the direction for the future.He listed out the major challenges facing the pharmacy trainings and practices in his presentation entitled, 'Trends of Pharmacy Education and Trainings in Asia: Proper Transformation or Not?' recently at the 25th Federation of Asian Pharmaceutical Associations Congress (FAPA) successfully held here at the Magellan Sutera Harbour Resort from October 9 to 12, 2014."Based on the projection of some changes in the foreseeable future, I believe that to be successful in the long run, pharmacy education will need to be different from today in the way that they are offered and operated."Collaboration among countries would be an effective strategy to strengthen and rapidly build up professional expertise in pharmacy schools.The education system in many countries has undergone changes with many initiatives to update their pharmacy programmes to a more clinical and service oriented programme with practice based approach reflecting the global vision for pharmacy practice and education, he said.New media technologies are also increasingly effective in such pharmacy education. The use of multimedia methods in teaching and learning can enhance learning and sharing of knowledge and experience around the world.Deficiencies in pharmacovigilance education many contribute to low involvement and ADR underreporting among pharmacists.There are also misunderstood issues related to the bioequivalence of generic medicine among pharmacy students. Education will change the perception of safety standards for generic medicine.Significance improvement in the knowledge and attitude towards generic medicine and bioequivalence is vital as with the confidence of regarding generic medicine substitution to save costs or expenses for governments, hospitals or patients.There are also issues with traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) which originated in China with more than 2,000 years' history or other traditional healing systems. Today TCM is practiced in China and almost all countries in the world with Chinese denizens. Many are mixing western drugs dosage with Chinese herbs intake.According to Sabah Pharmaceutical Society President Susan Pan and Community Pharmacist Yee That Hian, they do give counselling to their patients on such matters, and have encountered cases involving cancer patients.In the West, it is viewed as complementary and alternative medicine (CAM).In Malaysia, the government has incorporated integrated healthcare in many public hospitals since 2006 and has passed the Traditional and Complementary Medicine (T&CM) Act in 2012 in order to regulate the training and practise of Traditional and Complementary Medicine as traditionally the standard career choices for pharmacists were in the hospital and community settings.However, nowadays career opportunities have expanded with opportunities for knowledge and practice in traditional and complementary medicine.Pharmacy liberalization by the government has prompted this by offering pre-registration training in recognised government hospitals, private hospitals, government polyclinics, community pharmacies and pharmaceutical companies.The pharmacist profession is one of the better remunerated ones in Malaysia, whether in the public or private sector, especially if the practitioner is multi-lingual.Stay up-to-date by following Daily Express’s Telegram channel.
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