Pharmacy Profession & Community Health (Six Months)
Eligibility: 10th/12th pass in any stream.
Duration: 6 months
Affiliation: Bharat Sevak Samaj, National Development Agency, Promoted by Government of India.
Career Prospects: Hospitals, private clinics, diagnostic centres, blood banks, research and development departments of pharmaceutical companies.
Community pharmacists are the health professionals most accessible to the public. They supply medicines in accordance with a prescription or, when legally permitted, sell them without a prescription.
In addition to ensuring an accurate supply of appropriate products, their professional activities also cover counselling of patients at the time of dispensing of prescription and non-prescription drugs, drug information to health professionals, patients and the general public, and participation in health-promotion programmes. They maintain links with other health professionals in primary health care. Pharmacists have progressively undertaken the additional task of ensuring the quality of the products they supply.
The main activities of community pharmacists are described below.
Processing of prescriptions
Care of patients or clinical pharmacy
Monitoring of drug utilization
Extemporaneous preparation and small-scale manufacture of medicines
Traditional and alternative medicines
Responding to symptoms of minor ailments
Informing health care professionals and the public
Health promotion