Pharmacy students at universities across the country are being shown there is more to the profession than dispensing medicines.
A number of schools of pharmacy have received approval from the Australian Association of Consultant Pharmacy (AACP) to provide undergraduates with the initial training to obtain accreditation to carry out medication reviews.
Lecturer at the school of pharmacy at the University of Tasmania (UTas) Andrew Stafford told Pharmacy eNews it was opening student’s eyes to a variety of opportunities by completing stage one of the AACP’s accreditation process.
“The whole idea is their course is designed to get students familiar with some of the cognitive services available as apposed to purely preparing them for a supply role.
“It’s trying to really put their clinical knowledge into some sort of practical application, [because] previously it was all based around the hospital type learning,” he said.
“What better way of giving them other directions which they can take with their degree and providing them with such a practical way of using so much of the knowledge which we’ve spent three and a half years instilling in them.”
Having graduated in 2001, the year Home Medicines Reviews (HMR) were introduced, Mr Stafford said it took four years before he received accreditation.
He hopes the training will speed up the process of pharmacists getting AACP approval to carry out medication reviews.
“I would hope that there wouldn’t be that lag in time between new graduates coming out and being able to provide medication review services,” he said.
Speaking to Pharmacy eNews, a spokeswoman for the AACP said there are currently 1932 accredited pharmacists in Australia.
She added a number of universities had started providing final year undergraduates with training for the first stage of accreditation last year, but said it was too early to say if it had boosted interest in medication reviews among trainee pharmacists.