Community Pharmacy

 Approval of online pharmacies has questioned the role and importance of the pharmacist in public healthcare. Pharmacy education is undergoing transformation to upgrade the level of education and training given to practicing pharmacists. Pharmacists in developed countries are an integral part of the healthcare system and have acquired the status next only to doctors. Everywhere patient health is of utmost concern, instead of incurred expenses and business involved. Pharmacists receive respect and trust in the society. They should consider their profession as service to society rather than business. To believe in, and practice, ethics of profession will help to earn them the due respect. For achieving this, pharmacists should focus on acquiring the knowledge on potent medicines and their pharmacological actions, drug-drug and drug-food interactions, storage conditions and shelf-life of the drugs. They must counsel the patients on drug use and provide relevant information on safe and effective use of medicines. The book, therefore, attempts to give some direction to students regarding this. The book is divided into 15 chapters to address what a pharmacist must learn in present context of globalisation, with most recent available statistics. With rising tendency of our physicians to write more and more drugs in a prescription, the dangers of drug-drug and drug-food interactions and adverse drug reactions are increasing. In this edition, new chapter on Pharmacovigilance and revised chapter on devices are included to highlight new developments and changing scenario of healthcare responsibilities. A pharmacist can educate a patient on the use of new devices and exercise self control. With the globalisation of health insurance, managed by health management organisations and pharmacy, benefit management programmes are going to be an important aspect in this field