The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 278 No 7458 p773
30 June 2007

This article
Reprint   Photocopy

PDF 40K, Acrobat Reader

• Veterinary pharmacy
• Antibiotic resistance
• Community pharmacy
• Opiate addiction
• Clinical trials
• Retention fees (3)

Letters to the Editor

Veterinary pharmacy

Pharmacy course is of finite length

From Professor B. L. Furman, FRPharmS

I was interested to read the report from the June meeting of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society’s Council (PJ, 16 June, p716), at which Bob Michell advocated the inclusion of veterinary pharmacy in the indicative syllabus.

I agree that pharmacists should be willing to dispense veterinary prescriptions and offer the professional advice that goes along with the provision of the medicine. The undergraduate training should equip the pharmacy graduate with the sound scientific knowledge and understanding that underpins the actions, uses, formulation and adverse effects of medicines for whatever species they are intended. However, the course is of finite length and knowledge is infinite. If schools are to include veterinary pharmacy as a specific topic, the corollary is that something must be removed. Looking at the present indicative syllabus, I would find that hard to call.

The principles underlying the use of medicines in animals are exactly the same as those underlying their use in humans. Of course, species differ in their responses to drugs and how they metabolise them but there is also marked variability in human responses to these agents. If we have got education and training right, we should have inculcated in our undergraduates a desire to carry on learning throughout their professional lives and, indeed, this is becoming formalised through mandatory continuing professional development.

Faced with a veterinary prescription, the pharmacist has a duty to ensure that the right medicine has been prescribed in the right dose for the appropriate animal, just as he or she would need to do when faced with any prescription, especially the first prescription for a drug that has just come onto the market for human use. There are many resources available, including those referred to in the Council report, as well as numerous web-based materials.

Our graduates are, or should be, equipped to find rapidly the right information, assimilate it and make a professional decision in any novel situation. All of this is dependent upon maintaining a strong science base in the undergraduate course. If we dilute the science base, the long-term future of our profession is in serious jeopardy.

Brian Furman
University of Strathclyde

Send your letter to The Editor

Next Topic (Antibiotic resistance)