Pharmacy

Pharmacy is the science and practice of dispensing, preparing, reviewing safety and efficacy, monitoring, discovering, producing, and consulting about medications, aiming to ensure the safe, effective, and affordable use of medicines. It is an interdisciplinary science as it links health sciences, pharmaceutical sciences, and natural sciences with the humanities. The professional practice is clinically oriented, with most drugs now being manufactured by pharmaceutical industries and prescribed in the medical setting. Based on the setting, pharmacy practice is either classified as community or institutional pharmacy. Providing direct patient care is considered clinical pharmacy, mainly practiced in intuitions like hospitals, long-term care facilities, hospice, ambulatory clinics, or psychiatric hospitals. However, more clinical application are becoming important in the community setting to combat barriers to accessing healthcare (e.g., immunizations, point of care testing, oral contraceptive prescribing, administering injectable therapies, suggesting OTC products, or prescribing under Physician backed protocols). The scope of pharmacy practice includes more traditional roles such as dispensing and compounding of medications based on compendiums, like the USP. It also includes more modern services related to health care including clinical services involving medical guideline appropriateness, reviewing medications for safety and efficacy, and providing drug information with patient counselling. Pharmacists, therefore, are considered the experts on drug therapy and are the primary health professionals who optimize the use of medication for the benefit of the patient. In some jurisdictions, such as Colorado, Canada, and Australia, Pharmacists have more liberties to prescribe or adapt/manage prescriptions.. An establishment in which pharmacy (in the first sense) is practiced is called a pharmacy (this term is more common in the United States) or chemists (which is more common in Great Britain, though pharmacy is also used). In the United States and Canada, drugstores commonly sell medicines, as well as miscellaneous items such as confectionery, cosmetics, office...