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What is a clinical pharmacist?



QUESTION

What is a clinical pharmacist?


ANSWER

Pharmacists are drug experts. Clinical pharmacists take this knowledge and apply it to clinical scenarios.

Clinical pharmacists perform functions beyond fundamental dispensing and order-processing activities. This typically involves optimization of medication selection, dosing, and monitoring. There are a wide variety of activities that can be considered clinical pharmacy activities.

Under the clinical context there are three types of pharmacists. First is a “staff pharmacist” who performs no or limited clinical pharmacist activities. Second is a “hybrid pharmacist” who performs dispensing and order-processing activities sometimes, then clinical activities other times. Third is a “clinical pharmacist” who only performs clinical pharmacy activities. It is not very common to find a pharmacist position that solely requires clinical pharmacist activities. Which pharmacists and activities healthcare administrators consider “clinical” can vary between organizations.

Clinical pharmacists are not superior to non-clinical pharmacists, they just practice pharmacy in a different way.

Examples of clinical pharmacist activities:

  • Providing pharmacotherapy support to diagnosticians during inpatient medical ward rounds so that drug selection and dosing can be optimized
  • Interviewing and counseling patients in an ambulatory care clinic to ensure appropriate monitoring for safety and efficacy during treatment of hepatitis C
  • Developing institutional tools that help healthcare providers make smarter decisions related to medications

READINGS / RESOURCES

  • ACCP About Clinical Pharmacists Page
  • ACCP Definition of Clinical Pharmacy Statement

ANSWERED BY

Timothy P. Gauthier, Pharm.D., BCPS-AQ ID


Q&A DISCLAIMER

The ID PharmD Q&A pages attempt to answer common pharmacy questions by providing the perspective and opinion of a trained expert with substantial experience relevant to the question. That noted, these answers are not provided as all-inclusive comprehensive responses.


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