Dennis Miller, R.Ph.
|
What do you believe were your most relevant classes in pharmacy school? If you were asked today, how would you design the
pharmacy school curriculum based on what's been important in your career? Here are my thoughts on the subject, from the perspective
of a chain pharmacist.
My most prominent memory of pre-pharmacy and pharmacy school is the heavy emphasis on chemistry. Who can forget all those
courses in inorganic chemistry, organic chemistry, medicinal chemistry, and biochemistry? To this day, I can't understand
why my formal education placed such a heavy emphasis on chemistry. There is very little that I need to know about chemistry
to function as a competent retail pharmacist. The public associates pharmacists with chemistry, but that is an outdated view of pharmacists today, just as the mortar and
pestle is an archaic symbol for pharmacy. The chemistry requirements in pharmacy school seem to be a holdover from the days
when "pharmacist" was almost synonymous with "chemist."
My organic chemistry class consisted of pre-pharmacy and premedical students. I remember the professor of the class mentioning
that he had been approached by some premed students about making the class more meaningful to aspiring health professionals.
The professor commented that this was a reasonable request and that the issue would be examined. However, I didn't detect
any increase in relevance after that point. At that time, I considered it somewhat idealistic that these premed students approached
the professor with a request to make the class more relevant for future health professionals. Now, I realize they were absolutely
right. There was a general perception among pre-pharmacy and premed students that the chemistry and physics classes were "hurdle"
classes used by admissions committees to weed out applicants. If a student did well in those classes, it was assumed that
he or she could do well in pharmacy school or medical school. Like the heavy emphasis on chemistry that was required to become
a pharmacist, I have never understood the physics requirement. Even back in the 1970s, it should have been perfectly clear
that physics had very little to do with pharmacy. In pharmacy school, I had no idea that memorizing things like the structural formula of drugs would turn out to be of no use
in my career. Knowledge of structural formulas would have been beneficial if I had become a medicinal chemist. During my entire
career as a chain pharmacist, there has never been a single instance in which I needed to know the structural formula of a
drug. If you were to rank all of your required college courses in terms of relevance to your career, where would you place chemistry
on that list? When is the last time that a drug's structural formula had any bearing on any decision you had to make or on
any prescription you filled? When is the last time a doctor or customer asked you a question that required you to look at
the structural formula of a drug? I am not saying that we should not have a single course in chemistry. Complete ignorance of medicinal chemistry would not
be wise. For example, pharmacists would not be able to have an informed opinion about the differences among "me-too" drugs
without some understanding of the similarity in their structural formula. Pharmacists know that the difference in some drugs
is simply a minor molecular modification that is sufficient to qualify for a separate patent. Retail pharmacists draw upon their knowledge of pharmacology infinitely more often than their knowledge of chemistry. Counseling
requires knowledge of pharmacology and drug therapies, not chemistry. Yet my college years consisted of more classes in chemistry
than pharmacology. What sense does it make to have so much chemistry in college if it's not used after graduation? Of course,
chemistry is important for understanding things like IV incompatibilities, but I had far more chemistry than is needed to
understand IV incompatibilities. As a chain pharmacist, I've never prepared an IV.
|
| DON / KISIMMEE, FL, UNITED STATES
| |
| I AGREE-AFTER BEING OUT OF SCHOOL FOR 33 YEARS, MORE COURSES IN PHARMACOLOGY & BUSINESS WOULD HAVE BEEN HELPFUL
|
 |
| Irving Gerber / Fair Lawn, NJ, UNITED STATES
| |
| Hi Dennis, we actually communicated before and I enjoy your commentaries. I agree yet have no true basis in fact since I graduated in 1956 pre-medicinal chem, tho it appeared in another form (perhaps then called Pharmaceutical Chemistry). Nonetheless we did have an abundance of chem courses EVERY semester and every year. Like yourself had little need for (most of)it throughout my long working career although I do recall being asked to draw all or part of the structure of Orinase (Tolbutamide) one of the first if not the first hyperglycemic agents. Physics by the way was MY favorite course and wish we had more of it, was very practical for life's adventures..had it both in high school and pharamcy school. Keep writing your columns, enjoy them and find them to be real life experiences, not theoretical discussions.
|
|
| Lisa Hertel / Andover, MA, UNITED STATES
| |
| I believe your commentary regarding chemistry is short-sighted. First, you are presuming that everyone will come out of school as a retail pharmacist. I currently work in both retail and in a hospital, and I use far more chemistry in the hospital, including knowing what a eutectic is, the dissolution time of calcium carbonate, and solubility compatibilities. Some of these items were covered in basic chemistry, and some were not. Further, I can look at a structure and figure out the drug's class, or relative potency within the class. Having transferred into pharmacy school, I can assure you that the freshman and sophomore classes were pharmacy related; it was apparent that I had deficiencies in some areas from the first day of class. As for physics, I do not believe that one year of basic physics is arduous. Indeed, it's part of any good, well-rounded science education. Finally, hard sciences such as chemistry and physics are valuable tools to teach you how to think. They are far more visual than biology, and they teach you lab science. After all, compounding isn't all that far from bench chemistry. They also teach you how to handle hazardous materials, and how to make conclusions based on observations. It is this last point that you probably use every day in your retail practice. Careful observation, and drawing logical conclusions from facts, is a learned skill; I'm glad that every pharmacist has it. --Lisa Hertel BS Chemistry, BS Pharmacy
|
|
| Hanley Abramson / Detroit, MI, UNITED STATES
| |
| I read with great interest Mr. Dennis Miller?s analysis of his pharmacy education, with particular reference to the chemistry and physics courses through which he was forced to ?hurdle?. I find it truly astounding that a practicing pharmacist would have the courage to stand up and exclaim that the scientific foundations of his profession are irrelevant to that practice. This is akin to an engineer who designs aircraft telling the world that Newton?s laws of physics have no connection to his profession because nobody ever asks him to recite those foundational laws. I doubt that Mr. Miller would dare to volunteer to be a passenger on the maiden flight of an airplane designed by such an engineer. Is Mr. Miller really saying that concepts such as heat, light, force, radiation, electricity, etc., that most of us learned in physics, are irrelevant to pharmacy? If he really means that, he is to be pitied for his extremely narrow view of the pharmacy profession. As Alexander Pope once wrote, ?A little learning is a dangerous thing?. I only pray that Mr. Miller doesn?t come face to face with that truism in the course of his practice, if he hasn?t already done so.
|
 |
| | | LATEST LIABILITY LAW NEWS | |
|
| | | |  More |
| | | |
| 
Practice Tools
Posted 2007-11-27 23:07:06.0
