E-drug: Clinical pharmacy/clinical pharmacology training
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Dear E-druggers.
In Vietnam, we are currently starting to train problem-oriented clinical
pharmacology and clinical pharmacy. This is so far designed as a
one-week, problem- and case-oriented training for and with provincial
hospitals. The participants are both medical doctors and pharmacists,
working together.
The training has so far concentrated mostly on issues relating to
infectious diseases. We are bridging between theoretical data about
antibiotic resistance, to how to conduct practical treatment for
patients with common conditions.
We have been working with patient-cases in the local hospitals,
assessing antibiotic prophylaxis for various types of surgery, treatment
of post-surgical infections, and management of other key nosocomial
infections. We have also included practical training for the medical
doctors who are "supervisors", and who have the task to go out and help
staff at district and communal health centers, to improve their
drug-use. Throughout, we connect our training to evidence based medicine
and evidence-based treatment guidelines, which apply to practical
treatment of individual patients.
Streamlined into this, we address various issues of clinical relevance,
such as kidney or liver disease, and drug-drug-interactions, based on
the most common drug-combinations which we find in the local drug-use.
We also address the challenges of how to treat poisoning and drug
overdose, and we work with application of individual dosage-adjustment
for patients with liver- or kidney- disease. We have now been working
with a wide range of issues, covering pain control, asthma,
gynecological bleeding conditions, hypertension, heart failure, and
gastrointestinal problems, focusing on duodenal and ventricular ulcer.
The whole training is centered around how to use the tools given in a
National Drug Formulary, a handbook presenting basic data for key
essential drugs.
This book includes a short presentation of basic pharmacology, presents
shortly about key aspects of pharmacokinetics, needed to decide on
dosage adjustments and management of patients with liver or kidney
impairment. The book further present approved indications,
contraindications, needed precautions, safety aspects regarding drug-use
during pregnancy and breast feeding, adverse reactions and their
management, dosage for various indications and uses, drug-interactions,
and guidance for clinical management of overdose and poisoning.
Now, we wish to provide more experience for a Vietnamese team of doctors
and pharmacists, about how problem-oriented clinical pharmacology and
clinical pharmacy training is conducted abroad.
We wish to send a group of five or six people to visit institutions with
well established training programs. I would be most grateful for help
from You E-drug readers, to get in contact with relevant institutions
(primarily in the Asian region) who may be interested and able to help
us with this mission.
We have two, perhaps three weeks available for this visit, and we would
also like to take the opportunity, to establish a good institutional
collaboration for future work, with teaching and research in clinical
pharmacology and clinical pharmacy in Vietnam.
I am therefore most grateful,
for helpful suggestions from You all.
Thank You // Sam Tornquist
Dr med., Ph.D. Msc pharm
Adviser for rational and safe use of drugs
To Ministry of Health
Hanoi, Vietnam
E-mail: adpc@netnam.org.vn
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