SubscribeClinical Pharmacy and Pharmacotherapy Unit was officially established at the beginning of 1995. In February 1996, the Clinical Pharmacy and Pharmacotherapy Unit website was set up (http://www.ub.es/farcli/wp0.htm). This enabled us to introduce pioneer experiences in both research and teaching activities, as at the time we were unique in our approach to pharmacy studies in Spain. In October 2001, it received accreditation as Medical web from the Official Medical College of Barcelona.
The Unit is formed by pharmacists specialising in different fields of pharmacy consisting of full time academic and part time staff. Our part time staff also work in the following fields of pharmacy; community pharmacy, hospital, primary health centre and pharmaceutical industry.
Three main areas of our research are:
- Preclinical – including studies of Drug Stability, Dissolution Rate and Protein Binding.
- Clinical – including Bioavailability and Bioequivalence studies, Clinical and Population Pharmacokinetics or Therapeutic Drug Monitoring.
- Post-marketing – including Drug Information, Drug Utilisation and Therapeutic Harmonisation studies.
In 1992, a reformed and homologated syllabus of the Faculty of Pharmacy at the University of Barcelona was officially approved for first time, making “Clinical Pharmacy and Pharmacotherapy” and “Practice Training” amongst other subjects compulsory.
In 1995 (4th year of the curricula), teaching of “Clinical Pharmacy and Pharmacotherapy” began at the University of Barcelona. The main objective being to enable the student to relate medication and its environment to the patient (patient-focused care). The period of effective training is in the 8th semester. “Practice Training” is a 6-month practice based course in either Community or Hospital, the choice is made by the student.
Other optional subjects have been introduced by the Unit;
1996 - “Clinical Trials and Pharmacovigilance”, “Fluid therapy and Intravenous Administration”
1997 - “Advances in Biotechnological Therapy”, “Social Pharmacy”, “Practice work” - practice based in the faculty, a community pharmacy, hospital pharmacy, primary health care centre or pharmaceutical industry. “Pharmacoinformatics” – a relationship between the Practice of Pharmacy and Information Technology, mainly computers.
The Unit has participated in various graduate courses related to Pharmacy degree programmes. These include courses in “Advances in Clinical Pharmacokinetics”, “Advances in Pharmaceutical Care from Community Pharmacy, Hospital and Primary Health Care”, “Geriatric Pharmacy”, “Pharmaceutical Care and New tendencies in Pharmacy Care”, “Pharmacy Computering and Telematics” and “New tendencies in Pharmacotherapy”. For 2003-04 courses will be offered in collaboration with the Official Pharmaceutical College of Barcelona. Subjects covered will include: “Advances in patient drug information”, “Advances in Pharmacoepidemiology”, “Advanced Tools for Communication in Pharmacotherapy”, “How to write scientific journals” and “Pharmacoeconomy”.
Other graduate courses include; Masters (duration of more than 300 hours) such as “Integrated Pharmaceutical Care”, Graduate Diplomas (duration of more than or equal to 150 hours) such as “Management of Hypertension” or “Management of Diabetes Mellitus”, both of them are distant learning courses through Unit’s website.
As for international relationships, the Clinical Pharmacy and Pharmacotherapy Unit has participated and currently participates in different Student Interchange Programmes not only within European Union countries (Erasmus Programmes) but also with South American countries (Intercampus Programme) and more recently with USA (www.pharmobility.org).
Finally, the accumulated experience and effort to move away from the traditional “lectures and laboratories” approach towards strategies designed to improve factual recall and professional attitudes and skills have contributed to the recognition of the University of Barcelona as an Innovative Teaching Group.