Pharmacy

Pharmacy (from the Greek φάρμακον = drug) is the profession of compounding and dispensing medication. More recently, the term has come to include other services related to patient care including clinical practice, medication review, and drug information. Some of these new roles are now mandated by law in various legislatures. Pharmacists, therefore, are drug therapy experts and the primary health professionals who optimize medication management to produce positive health-outcomes.

Disciplines

The field of Pharmacy can generally be divided into three main disciplines:

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• Pharmaceutics
• Pharmaceutical chemistry (often Medicinal chemistry)
• Pharmacy practice

The boundaries between these disciplines and indeed with other sciences, such as biochemistry, are not always clear-cut; and often collaborative teams from various disciplines research together.

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Pharmacology is sometimes considered a fourth discipline of pharmacy. Although pharmacology is essential to the study of pharmacy, it is not specific to pharmacy. Therefore it is usually considered to be a field of the broader sciences.

Related Topics:
Pharmacology - Science

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