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Letters to the Editor |
Education
A medical qualification for pharmacists?
From Mr E. W. Jenkins, FRPharmS
It is interesting to read (PJ, March 10, p304)
that hospital pharmacists will shortly be legally allowed to prescribe
medicines. Other reports have indicated that they are completely responsible
for a number of medical clinics.
It is also interesting to read reports of a great shortage of doctors
and a suggestion that the five-year course of study for medicine could
be reduced to four years. With hospital pharmacists taking over a number
of medical consultant duties, recommendations have been made that the
present four-year course should be increased to five years for higher
qualifications. So medical studies could decrease by a year and pharmacy’s
studies increase by a year.
Is there not a case for approaches to be made for the establishment of
a shortened medical course for pharmacists interested in treating patients
to round off their studies with a real medical qualification? Costs, efficiency
and accountability would, of course, have to be borne in mind.
Edwin Jenkins
Southampton
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The
Pharmaceutical Journal Vol 266 No 7145 p573-576