Pharmaceutical care is the responsible provision of drug therapy for achieving definite outcomes that improve a patient’s quality of life. However, pharmacists in India receive their training with a product focus rather than the patient focus. Managing drug therapy, counseling patients on proper use of medications and monitoring drug therapy outcomes have become a major issue in recent times. Patient-centered pharmaceutical practice requires to focus on life-long learning because of the constantly changing medical and regulatory landscape.
History of Department
National College of Pharmacy KMCT, established the Department of Pharmacy Practice in the year 2009 with an objective to build and develop professionally competent clinical pharmacists in this modern era of medicine. The department was constituted primarily to prepare the M.Pharm, Pharm D and Pharm D (PB) students to acquire the knowledge, skills and professional attitudes for functioning as quality professionals. The department has a team of 16 dedicated faculty members. A total of 44 M.Pharm, 62 Pharm D candidates have graduated from our institution. 19 M.Pharm and 167 Pharm D candidates are currently pursuing their academic career in NCP. We have the proactive support of a tertiary care teaching hospital on the same campus. The digital resources we share with the medical college, under the same management, provide a scholarly environment.
Objectives
The research activity of the department focuses primarily on pharmacist-related patient care. Training covers many aspects that render competence in prescription analysis and interpretation of clinical data. Clinical activities include provision of drug and poison information, adverse drug reaction monitoring, tracking drug-drug and drug-food interactions, reviewing patient medication history, reviewing patient medication orders, patient counselling, medication therapy management, medication error reporting, participation in the community as well as hospital-based health camps, case review meetings and journal club activities.
Department Facilities
Department of Pharmacy practice also operates a drug information center (DIC) in the hospital, offering unbiased information to patients, doctors, and fellow professionals. Students are free to access online databases such as Lexicon, Edsco from the DIC. Department library includes more than 600 references resources, National and international journals covering the entire clinical pharmacy and therapeutics area. The department has published more than 70 research and review articles in various national and international journals.
Patient Counselling area
Department set up patient counseling area near to the OP as well as in the DIC for giving drug and disease-related education to the patient. Patient counseling was given to the patients by using patient information leaflets, information cards, and other counseling aids.