What's the scope of clinical pharmacy ?

[Carboxide]

My question is to you is practicing is that do you ever feel that you don’t have the entire clinical picture that the physician has to arrive at the right therapy or to intervene successfully? If so, how often does this happen? It would be frustrating if that happens often. I guess I don’t understand the role of the pharmacist. The way I am thinking is that if for a certain patient, the doctor diagnoses X condition and chooses a therapeutic plan, how can a pharmacist judge if that plan is appropriate without having the knowledge of the disease that a physician has learned through several years in training?

If the pharmacist has that knowledge, that’s like going through med school and pharmacy school. The way I am seeing is that if I am able to critique what a physician is doing, then I must have the same or more knowledge about what he is doing to adequately critique. That’s like being a physician itself. So far (end of P2) I haven’t learnt pathophysiology in detail in pharmacy school and when I look at med school material, I see how little I am learning about the disease states.When do you trust a treatment plan because of lack of appreciation of the entire picture (that physician has or he should) and when do you intervene? Or is the pharmacist in place to know the guidelines and catch any deviations? I am seeing as black and white and haven’t been on rotations to fully appreciate the details of how things work.

I think you are wrong about this. The physician doesn't have a 'more complete' picture than you. They simply are able to make a diagnosis. Once you know what they are treating, you are able to make good recommendations for treatment, and ones that are possibly better than the physician's. They have very little training in treatment.

I don't know what school you go to, but pathophysiology was a major part of my education and I'd be surprised it was minimal in yours. The difference between us is more rooted in the physical exam part - I can't read EKGs or CT scans, nor can I perform procedures on patients or discern an arrhythmia via stethoscope. Once that's done for me, though, I am more than capable of making excellent treatment plans.

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[BenJammin]

I'm a full fledged clinical pharmacist and I'm proud to say that I do not have a residency. Those of us who paid attention in school do not need another year of being essentially a student at half pay for what we can already do.