This project addresses all of whom interested and may be planning to study pharmacy, or already studying pharmacy. We will take you through all obligatory courses in pharmacy school and tell you why we study them and what they are about. This booklet will give you a clue what a pre-pharmacist needs to know, study and get trained on before being a pharmacist who works in the healthcare who might save lives, heal wounded and choosing the most appropriate drug for each patient’s case.
Choosing wrong drug whether by a pharmacist or a doctor may cause patient’s poisoning and death, and that would turn both of pharmacist and doctors from saviours to murderers. For example a pharmacist can give the right drug for diabetes but without knowing that the same diabetic patients also suffers hypertension, the pharmacist has just put the patients in severe hypertension position.
We going to take you step by step across 5 years of hard study and excitement, explaining the main ideas of each course and how helpful it will be for study other courses later in pharmacy or how you going to need it as a Healthcare professional in everyday life with your patients.
Going through some science essentials like biology, chemistry and physics; then applying them professionally in Biochemistry, Pharmacology, Microbiology and Pharmacokinetics. Then getting trained like a professional and make you decide your career as Quality Control pharmacist, drug seller in a pharmacy, Hospital pharmacist, research and development or even a food analyst if you wish.
Pharmacy School is one of its kind unlike Medicine and Arts of science, pharmacists can get many variety of jobs to choose from with higher salaries and less responsibilities unlike doctors who get less variety to choose from and after they graduate from Medicine School they have no job except being a doctor, however they may specialize in surgery, heart disease or digestive system and plenty of other things to specialize in, but they are still doctors with the hardest task in the Healthcare.
We wish that the project gets your attention and please don’t rush through the booklet as you going to pass through some fascinated and critical points in the booklet which may be useful to you and others you may know who would be interested about the Pharmacy School. Thank you Are you know pharmacy science what is mean? Pharmacy is the health profession that links the health sciences with the chemical sciences and it is charged with ensuring the safe and effective use of pharmaceutical drugs. The word derives from the Greek: ????????
(pharmakon), meaning “drug” or “medicine”[1] (the earliest form of the word is the Mycenaean Greek pa-ma-ko, attested in Linear B syllabic script]). The scope of pharmacy practice includes more traditional roles such as compounding and dispensing medications, and it also includes more modern services related to health care, including clinical services, reviewing medications for safety and efficacy, and providing drug information. Pharmacists, therefore, are the experts on drug therapy and are the primary health professionals who optimize medication use to provide patients with positive health outcomes.
An establishment in which pharmacy (in the first sense) is practiced is called a pharmacy, chemist’s or (in the United States) drug store. US drug stores commonly sell not only medicines, but also miscellaneous items such as candy (sweets), cosmetics, and magazines, as well as light refreshments or groceries. The word pharmacy is derived from its root word pharma which was a term used since the 15th–17th centuries. In addition to pharma responsibilities, the pharma offered general medical advice and a range of services that are now performed solely by other specialist practitioners, such as surgery and midwifery.
The pharma (as it was referred to) often operated through a retail shop which, in addition to ingredients for medicines, sold tobacco and patent medicines. The pharmas also used many other herbs not listed. In its investigation of herbal and chemical ingredients, the work of the pharma may be regarded as a precursor of the modern sciences of chemistry and pharmacology, prior to the formulation of the scientific method. Historical background Ancient Egyptian pharmacological knowledge was recorded in various papyri such as the Ebers Papyrus of 1550 BC, and the Edwin Smith Papyrus of the 16th century BC.
The earliest known Chinese manual on materia medica is the Shennong Bencao Jing (The Divine Farmer’s Herb-Root Classic), dating back to the 1st century AD. It was compiled during the Han dynasty and was attributed to the mythical Shennong.
Earlier literature included lists of prescriptions for specific ailments, exemplified by a manuscript “Recipes for 52 Ailments”, found in the Mawangdui tomb, sealed in 168 BC. Further details on Chinese pharmacy can be found in the Pharmacy in China article. Dioscorides, De Materia Medica, Byzantium, 15th century
Middle Ages In Baghdad the first pharmacies, or drug stores, were established in 754,[5] under the Abbasid Caliphate during the Islamic Golden Age. By the 9th century, these pharmacies were state-regulated. [6] Arabic herbal medicine guidebook De Materia Medica of Dioscorides. Cumin & dill. c. 1334. The advances made in the Middle East in botany and chemistry led medicine in medieval Islam substantially to develop pharmacology.
Muhammad ibn Zakariya Razi (Rhazes) (865-915), for instance, acted to promote the medical uses of chemical compounds. Abu al-Qasim al-Zahrawi (Abulcasis) (936-1013) pioneered the preparation of medicines by sublimation and distillation.
His Liber servitoris is of particular interest, as it provides the reader with recipes and explains how to prepare the `simples’ from which were compounded the complex drugs then generally used. Sabur Ibn Sahl (d 869), was, however, the first physician to initiate pharmacopoedia, describing a large variety of drugs and remedies for ailments.
Al-Biruni (973-1050) wrote one of the most valuable Islamic works on pharmacology entitled Kitab al-Saydalah (The Book of Drugs), where he gave detailed knowledge of the properties of drugs and outlined the role of pharmacy and the functions and duties of the pharmacist. Ibn Sina (Avicenna), too, described no less than 700 preparations, their properties, mode of action and their indications. He devoted in fact a whole volume to simple drugs in The Canon of Medicine.
Of great impact were also the works by al-Maridini of Baghdad and Cairo, and Ibn al-Wafid (1008–1074), both of which were printed in Latin more than fifty times, appearing as De Medicinis universalibus et particularibus by `Mesue’ the younger, and the Medicamentis simplicibus by `Abenguefit’. Peter of Abano (1250–1316) translated and added a supplement to the work of al-Maridini under the title De Veneris.
Al-Muwaffaq’s contributions in the field are also pioneering. Living in the 10th century, he wrote The foundations of the true properties of Remedies, amongst others describing arsenious oxide, and being acquainted with silicic acid.
He made clear distinction between sodium carbonate and potassium carbonate, and drew attention to the poisonous nature of copper compounds, especially copper vitriol, and also lead compounds. He also describes the distillation of sea-water for drinking. [7] Tacuina sanitatis, XIV century.
In Europe pharmacy-like shops began to appear during the 12th century. In 1240 emperor Frederic II issued a decree by which the physician’s and the apothecary’s professions were separated. [8] The first pharmacy in Europe (still working) was opened in 1241 in Trier, Germany.
[citation needed] In Europe there are old pharmacies still operating in Dubrovnik, Croatia located inside the Franciscan monastery, opened in 1317 ; and one in the Town Hall Square of Tallinn, Estonia dating from at least 1422. The oldest is claimed to be set up in 1221 in the Church of Santa Maria Novella in Florence, Italy, which now houses a perfume museum.
The medieval Esteve Pharmacy, located in Llivia, a Catalan enclave close to Puigcerda, is also now a museum dating back to the 15th century, keeping albarellos from the 16th and 17th centuries, old prescription books and antique drugs.
Pharmacy School is one of its kind unlike Medicine and Arts of science, pharmacists can get many variety of jobs to choose from with higher salaries and less responsibilities unlike doctors who get less variety to choose from and after they graduate from Medicine School they have no job except being a doctor, however they may specialize in surgery, heart disease or digestive system and plenty of other things to specialize in, but they are still doctors with the hardest task in the Healthcare. Foundations of Pharmacy: paragraph1 To study pharmacy, you need basics to help you later to understand pharmacy and continue with it.
School of pharmacy makes sure that all its students are all at same level before beginning. The pharmacy school make its student study English, Math and Computer in the first and second year. Pharmacy is taught, studied and examined in English, as English is the easiest language used to study pharmacy to avoid miss confusion and difficult pronunciations and make it easier for students get to the point. Plus it allows plenty of other people from different countries with different languages to study pharmacy under the same roof and that would help in socialization.
Maths is a MUST, because it is needed for about four different courses in the core of pharmacy. Math is needed in Chemical Analysis, Pharmaceutical Analysis and Quality Control to calculate concentrations of Drugs and number of moles and series of calculations which measures the toxicity and shelf life of Drugs. Maths is also needed in studying Pharmacokinetics of drugs. No drug can exist without pharmacokinetics study which have to explain the points where drug cause its effects and how the body will get rid of that drug later after patient has taken it.
Computer nowadays is an obligatory thing which a pharmacist need in reports writing and coordinating prescriptions and plenty of other stuff. Some laboratory equipments only work by computers and lots of machinery in pharmaceutical factories commanded through computers. So no point anybody avoid computer these days unless he want to spend the rest of his life unemployed! However Maths, English and Computer are not all the foundations of pharmacy, but still remain what is more important like Biology and Chemistry for example.
Students are not required to be having the same knowledge as Biologists and Chemists, but they must be at least familiar with what going to concern them with pharmacy study. Students need to know about human body, bacterial cells, viruses and plants organs and tissues.
All of these things considered Biology but in an isolated and unlinked manner. Under professional titles, plants organs and tissues studied through a series of courses called Botany, Photochemistry, herbal medicine and Pharmacognosy. Study of bacteria and viruses called parasitology and microbiology.
Chemistry considered the major part of pharmacy. Chemistry is in Organic, Pharmaceutical Chemistry, Inorganic, Instrumental and Pharmaceutical analysis, Biochemistry and Quality Control. Studying Organic chemistry helps later on in studying Pharmaceutical Chemistry and Drug Design; however Analysis is like the basics which is later explained and applied in Quality Control. Organic chemistry is a 80% of chemistry because more of organic matter exist on earth than inorganic matter. In other words organic means that the chemical compounds we dealing with, got CARBON ( 12C).
We breathe in Oxygen O2, but we breathe out carbon dioxide CO2. The extra Carbon 12C, come from the food, drinks and may be drugs we take inside our bodies which all made of carbon 12C which undergo series of reactions and pathways to become Carbon Dioxide.
Most Drugs in store got Carbon as major element, but what makes these drugs different is the arrangement of carbon atoms in them, number of carbon atoms variations and the few inorganic elements like sodium, sulfur etc that may exist in a drug compound. When it is said that most drugs got Carbon then these drugs are involved in Biochemistry.
A drug with a certain Carbon atoms arrangement with certain number of atoms only can act on an Organ as it gets attached to its cells causing the drug effect. The drug has been chosen out of millions and billions of compounds passing by or through the organ because of it organic chemical property. The other role of organic chemistry which is already has been explained is the structure and arrangement of molecules within the drugs. Drugs could be nearly the same but adding or moving away one element can affect the effectiveness of the drug.
Not only adding or moving, but changing positions of molecules while keeping them within drug compound can change the drug totally and affect its effectiveness. These types of studies will be deeply and widely explained in Pharmaceutical Chemistry and Drug Design later on.
Botany, Pharmacognosy and Phytochemistry For mankind to exist and increase in population through time, they had to make sure that they can survive. So they started to develop the basis of pharmacy through discovering curing methods and natural substances that may help them cure and decrease their immortal rates.
Ancient civilizations found that some plants could be useful for treating disease and help mankind to recover and live longer. These primarily researches has lightened the way for pharmacy to get introduced to the world. The study of medicines derived from nature, is called Pharmacognosy. However, you cannot study Pharmacognosy without studying Botany which gives you a clear education about plants and plant’s structure, plant’s metabolism and plants growth and reproduction.
Botany is studied by many other schools other than pharmacy school, therefore while you studying botany in pharmacy, professors will make sure that pharmacy students will get taught what they need to study Pharmacognosy later and knowing the natural extracts that are useful in healing and curing from disease. Botany in Pharmacy school gives idea about plants, fruits and vegetables which that has pharmaceutical effect and been useful for humanity across history.
Plus it tells you about the plant organs that make it have the positive effect in the human body in other words whether the leaves, roots or barks produce the healing effect. Students must be able to identify many plants by looking at different cells and tissues taken from plant’s leaves, roots or barks under microscope.
After completing Botany, students should be able to enter the next phase which is Pharmacognosy. Pharmacognosy will take students in more detailed studies in Botany. Leaving all plants that exist on Earth, students will only focus on plants that helped mankind to cure and get rid of pain.
In Pharmacognosy students will be able to know the specific parts of a plant that make it has a significant healing effect other than other plants, by studying how the plant develop its natural component which exert positive effect on human health and which cells and tissues responsible for creating that substance. After completing Pharmacognosy, students must be able to know the physical, chemical, biochemical and biological properties of drugs, drug substances or potential drugs or drug substances of natural origin.
Finally to the professional area, which is Phytochemistry, where students get to the level of analyzing the chemical constituents of plants in series of tests to make sure that plants got the drug they looking for, or differentiate between a plant and another by their chemical constituents.
Phytochemistry is most complicated in the Botany section, but helps future pharmacists to be professionals and be able to extract drugs directly by different methods from nature and test for their availability in more than one plant.
Phytochemistry gives the opportunity for pharmacists to link between natural medicinal plants and organic and pharmaceutical chemistry, in a manner of the common similarities that may exist between a botanical medicine and industrially synthesized drug by multi-national company exerting same effect in human. For the reader’s knowledge, almost every drug on Earth has been naturally found but might have undergone chemical modification by scientists to be more efficient drug or be a medicinal drug. Pargraph2 In the Core of Pharmacy.
After one year of learning the foundations of pharmacy, student should be able to get inside the core of the study of pharmacy and understand a completely new learning material, whether in lecture theatres or in Labs.
Most of the lecturers will change and new professional professors will be teaching. And new courses, students are going to learn which they may never has been passed through before for their next four years to know everything about a hospital and retailer pharmacist, Industrial pharmacist, Quality Control pharmacist and research & development ” R& D”.
That would make students fresh and ready to take a pharmacist responsibility in any of these sectors with no fear or doubt and get paid too for what they doing as they are professionals in it. Young Pharmacists going to take a blend of courses that might be related or totally unrelated to each other, like Public Health and Community Pharmacy, or like Hospital pharmacy and Drug marketing or Industrial Pharmacy for example.
In public health and community pharmacy both gives idea about public and community and common disease in everyday life but in Hospital it doesn’t ask you to sell a drug for the benefit of a company cause you are already working for the hospital and do what doctors ask you, unlike a company sales man who tries to sell a drug for the benefit of the company he working for which you hopefully will be taught in Drug marketing. Students are going to study Biochemistry, Pharmacology, Pharmaceutical Chemistry, Industrial Pharmacy, Toxicology and Quality Control.
Biochemistry As already mentioned before, Biochemistry cannot be clear for someone who hasn’t passed through chemistry, organic chemistry and biology. Biochemistry would help students who going to work in hospitals and laboratory analysis (blood and urine analysis by certain). Biochemistry is will take you to the causes of un-infectious disease, mostly like diabetes, liver secretions and other hormones secretions in the human body. The stop of one hormonal secretion or it overproduction can lead to body death.
Therefore in biochemistry, pharmacists study how to diagnose these cases physically, clinically and most important by Laboratory tests and then possibilities to treat them. For example in case of diabetes, patients usually have few or no insulin hormone secreted in the body. The absence of insulin may lead to increase of blood glucose after a heavy starch meal which if untreated may lead to coma then death. So if a patient looks with physical diabetes symptoms like loss of weigh, dark urine etc, a sample of blood and urine taken from the patient and start investigating.
If it appeared that patient with diabetes, then the patient has to arrange his diet or in worse cases he has to take insulin injection. Another example if a young child is not showing regular growth unlike children and teens in same age, plus his parents growth was normal and have same heights like average people. Doctors and pharmacists may be suspicious that the child’s thyroid gland not functioning well, so under a series of Laboratory tests, the problem may be investigated and find a solution to make sure that the child or teen grow normally.
Pharmacists who studied biochemistry have a great chance to monitor many diseases which has to do with body secretions and investigate for them. In this course pharmacists will know how to test for the blood type, and monitor blood glucose levels and test for the absence or presence of many exocrine and endocrine hormones.
These hormones could be growth hormones, sex hormones, digestion secretions and many other secretion and hormone produced by the body, and young pharmacists will be able to apply it clinically later in the course. Pharmacology Central Nervous System is taking care of the all the unconscious actions by the body, a human not aware of, like Blood pumping from heart to lungs and body, then blood pumped back to the heart, breathing and contraction and relaxation of muscles in the body.
When students begin pharmacology, they get introduced first to the Central Nervous System and Peripheral Nervous systems knowing them in exact details and how they command organs in the body such as the heart and lungs.
Students also know secretions like Acetylcholine and Adrenaline which are two major compounds produced by the nervous system that travel in the body and bind on certain cells on certain organs and make them respond in the favor of the body, like when adrenaline is secreted it always increases heart rate.
Nervous system exert its actions on Heart, blood vessels, lungs, brain and many other organs in the body which we don’t know or not discovered yet. So these actions are classified by the type of the receptors on the cells on organs which can be same receptors but on two or more different organs in the body.
These receptors can be sympathetic like alpha1, alpha2, Beta1, 2 and 3 receptors which are stimulated by the adrenaline and noradrenalin compounds naturally produced by the body to cause an action on heart, lungs or blood vessels or the parasympathetic receptors which are divided into muscarinic and nicotinic receptors which are stimulated by acetylcholine naturally or nicotine (like nicotine in cigarettes) artificially, acting on the same organs like the sympathetic system but in an opposite or related manner.
Studying pharmacology later on shows how pharmacological drugs can treat bad symptoms and how they can treat one problem and cause another, as drugs can cause more than an action when introduced to the body (in another words a drug can induce alpha receptor but block a Beta receptor) cause increase in heart rate, but decrease breathing for example. Pharmacological drugs can be very confusing but for sure they are very risky and a pharmacist should be aware while giving them to patient.
By hard study and learning, pharmacy students should be able to choose right pharmacological drugs according to the patient, as some patients may suffer from more than one diseases and taking a certain drugs to treat one would worsen another. When finishing pharmacology, pharmacist will know more than enough to treat or check prescriptions (if doctors mistaken in choosing drugs for patients) in many cases especially with Hypertension, Myocardial Infarction, Heart failure, Parkinson, Alzheimer, Asthma and peptic ulcer, as these disease are becoming very common these days.
Microbiology Knowing the pathogen that causes an infection in the body then killing it with most appropriate Antimicrobial agent. In microbiology, student will first be asked to know most types of bacterial cells and where there infection places in the body and what symptoms these microorganisms may cause, then later on, isolate these microbial cells (infecting agents) and identify them microscopically or by cultivating them then applying series of reaction on them. Then finally kill the pathogen by giving the most appropriate antimicrobial agent.
In microbiology, students must be able to guess the type of bacteria by its causative symptom to a patient, then get a sample of this bacteria through multiple ways (like from feces, urine, blood or from body tissues by applying surgical methods. Then through series of tests and identification methods, the bacteria must be identified and then find the best drug that would kill that bacteria and eliminate it totally from the body, avoiding its ability to be resistant to that drug and be untreated.
Microbiology also takes viruses into consideration as they are source of microbiological disease, plus prevention methods like vaccines and their types and regional diseases are taught into microbiology Pharmacokinetics The drug shelf-life and drug absorption and removal in and then out of the body is mainly focused in pharmacokinetics.
Research and Development departments and health authorities always care about a pharmacokinetic study of each drug as it’s the only study which involves trials on animals and then man to approve their validation by FDA (Food and Drug Authority) to use, after the drug first discovered, then enters the drug market safely. First thing students learn in pharmacokinetics is the stability of drugs on shelves when they are factory sealed then their stability after they get opened (single dose and multiple dose drugs in containers).
This study ensures safety of drug for certain period of time in which it can be used safely. Some drugs can stay on shelf for years others can only stand for days or even hours, and some must be stored in cool places while others can be damaged if been put in a fridge. After students get warmed up with the exciting pharmacokinetics calculations and new type of math, they study the pathway of drug in the body from the time it get introduced whether orally, injection or topically, till it exert its action then get metabolized and leave the body.
This study assures the safety of drug inside the body and watching the drug concentration in the body after the dose and whether the body will get rid of the drug or not. Choosing the right dose of drug is one of the vital things students have to come through in pharmacokinetics. In some cases doses are calculated related to age or body weight. Some medications require the maintenance of dose in the body for a certain time to ensure its effectiveness while its degradation from body as it gets metabolized.
Of course, many other uses and methods which pharmacokinetics theories applied in, but we cannot explain in them in a ten pages booklet. Pharmaceutical Chemistry and Drug Design Research and Development departments always need pharmaceutical chemistry as it the only way to identify chemical characteristics of the active constituent of a drug and know its chemical structure. No way possible to understand this course without having a quite deep knowledge in chemistry and organic chemistry.
Some authorities other than Research & Development, Government Health Authorities and health organizations like FDA “Food and Drug authorities” and WHO “World Health Organization” require pharmacists with good knowledge and PhDs in pharmaceutical chemistry to verify the drugs produced by some drug manufacturers whom may release drugs which are dangerous to community without knowing or just acting they don’t know to make more profits.
Pharmaceutical chemistry use the basic molecular structure of drugs as a main base for comparing drugs and later on modify them or choose the best of them that would have more efficiency and many other uses. Multinational Drug companies spend millions and billions of dollars each year in Research and Development departments which primarily rely on Pharmaceutical Chemistry and Drug Design. These millions and billions can be only spent on one drug, but when it enters the market it spontaneously makes 10 times more income then what has been paid for developing the new drug.
Drugs could look the same by their molecular weight and structure, but if it appeared they are mirror image of each other, then one of them is more preferred by its target organ as it binds on its cells typically the way it should be, while the other mirror image drug compound cannot and may have low or no absorption at all. This was like a fast example of what student may study in pharmaceutical chemistry. Industrial Pharmacy Some pharmacists prefer to be involved in the manufacture of the drug then analyzing it or standing in pharmacies.
Industrial pharmacy is a very essential course these days as the number of drug manufacturers is increasing aggressively to supple world demands, and therefore fresh graduating pharmacists are needed to fit in the industrial area of pharmacy. Working in a drug manufacturing isn’t the same as working in a candy factory, as pharmacists been given more responsibilities, dealing with toxic elements that should be added in the right portion or many victims can appear cause of one person’s mistake. Pharmaceutical factories are unlike other industrial places, they require clean and sterile environment with no or few bacteria and other contaminants.
Workers in such factories got certain pathways i. e. in some factories workers cannot go and return through same pathway, or the whole sterile area would be contaminated and plenty of money will be spent to maintain the area’s sterility back again. Therefore student are asked to know best infrastructure for factories and building materials, and best methods to maintain clean area inside a factory and different classes of sterility. Some areas inside a pharmaceutical factory like injection preparing area require more sterile environment over another area for oral solutions.
Best storage methods should be applied for raw material and final product to avoid any possible contamination. Later on in the Industrial pharmacy course, students will be asked to know about machinery type and manufacturing equipments that usually used by pharmaceutical factories. Such knowledge makes sure that when students graduate, they work as professionals and deal professionally with machinery and equipments avoiding waste of time on training and just when graduate find the right job.
Quality Control Control and assure the validity the use a drug after its manufacture still a task for pharmacists, they can be handled with all respect. Several methods are studied and applied to measure safety and efficiency of the drug when taken.
Quality control departments are found in labs in pharmaceutical factories and most important in government labs. The safety of drugs is an important issue, which ensures that drug contamination is negligible or within margin that won’t cause any poisoning effect. Also assuring drug efficiency i. e. drug got required amount of active constituent no more or less, is done through certain measure, which students get trained on.
Samples must be taken out each time from a recently prepared pharmaceutical product to assure it lies within safety measures avoiding in public health problem which may affect community and drug market. Hospital Pharmacy Working in a hospital pharmacy, different types of tasks would be handled to a pharmacist. Certain doses should be prepared within different dosage forms i. e. if drug only given orally, but doctors suggest it should be injected. Doctors directly contact the pharmacists and ask them for specific preparations that suit their patients.
Patients inside hospital always require freshly prepared doses which added to their injected solutions as usually they can’t swallow or conscious. Patients who can’t eat also get their diet supplements through injected solutions which are prepared by pharmacists. When working for a hospital, pharmacists work on small scale, supplying each patient with its specific medication.
However, pharmacists who work in pharmacists, rarely often make specific preparations, as all usual dosage form already supplied by pharmaceutical factories ready to the pharmacy retailer, packaged and sealed.
Clinical Pharmacy Pharmacists should be familiar with certain cases that he may come through daily. These cases may not necessary require the doctor visit and can be handled by the pharmacist who is still a member in the health care society. Therefore, students are given the opportunity to study some cases and be able to treat them by giving the right curing method and prescribing the right drugs for patients. Of course this saves time and money for patient, if the case can be handled by pharmacists.
Pharmacy management
Pharmacy management gives an idea about pharmacists should operate pharmacies in an organized way, and making profits legally by providing helpful health services to customers. Paragraph3 Issues in pharmacy [edit] Separation of prescribing from dispensing In most jurisdictions (such as the United States), pharmacists are regulated separately from physicians.