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'The future is bright: The future is CPD'

11 Jun 2013

The School of Pharmacy at University College Cork is celebrating ten years in existence this year.  These celebrations have commenced with an evening event for community and hospital pharmacists – entitled "The future is bright: The future is CPD" on 14 May.

During the evening the School showcased a number of research projects currently being undertaken by the Clinical Pharmacy Practice staff, as well as a CPD overview based on the Northern Ireland model.    Below is a flavour of the presentations on the night.  Two of the past graduates highlighted their work – one in relation to the Warfarin Clinic in Cloyne Pharmacy and the other regarding engagement of the School with Hospital Pharmacy research.    Below is a summary of each of the topics discussed.

Health Literacy

Dr Laura Sahm and Dr Suzanne McCarthy gave a presentation on the issue of health literacy and the impact it can have on patients’ health. Health literacy is defined as having basic reading and numerical skills that allow a person to function in a health care environment. People with limited health literacy are more likely to have poorer health outcomes and it is recognised as a leading cause of medication errors and adverse drug events. Suzanne outlined the research that she and Laura have been conducting in this area, in collaboration with researchers from Northwestern University, Chicago. Their study examining the prevalence of limited health literacy, which was published in the Journal of Health Communication, revealed that up to 57% of patients can experience limited health literacy, and it is associated with increased age and lower educational attainment. The results of another study, published in the European Journal of Clinical Pharmacology, looked at the impact of patient-centred labelling on prescription medication. The patient-centred label grounds medication-taking to four distinct time periods (i.e. morning, noon, evening, bedtime) to help patients understand when to take medicine. The results of this study revealed that the patient-centred label instructions were more likely to be correctly interpreted than the standard labels especially among people with limited health literacy. Laura and Suzanne are always keen to develop links with pharmacists in community and hospital pharmacy to further develop research in this important topic.

CPD

Dr Paul McCague  outlined the PSI vision for CPD in Ireland and spoke of his experience of undertaking CPD in Northern Ireland. Paul discussed how the School of Pharmacy have engaged with community and hospital pharmacists in research projects which have led to developments in their professional practice. He highlighted the success of the MSc in Clinical Pharmacy and other standalone modules available in facilitating CPD for community and hospital pharmacists, and how all pharmacists will be able to work with the School as we move forward with a 5-year integrated MPharm programme.

 

The School was delighted to welcome back past graduates – Fiona Aherne who is a Pharmacist at Cork University Hospital and she presented the finding from her Masters project entitled “Determining the frequency and preventability of Adverse Drug Reaction – related admissions to Cork University Hospital”.  Kieran Walsh and Dermot Twomey of Cloyne Pharmacy (and who sponsors the most improved student award each year ) presented a project on the success of the Warafin Clinic in Cloyne Pharmacy.  This presentation was called “Evaluation of Coagulation Management Services and Therapeutic Time in Range for Patients attending both primary and secondary care anti-coagulant clinics”. Both of these projects have been presented at various conferences and were published as peer review articles.

 

The final presentation was made by Dr Stephen Byrne on his research into “Care of the older person and working with the profession”.  Dr Byrne recently accepted the Chair in Clinical Pharmcy Practice and will take up this post along with becoming Head of the School at UCC in October of this year.  Professor Caitriona O’Driscoll commented in her opening speech that the School was delighted with this appointment and congratulated Dr Byrne not only for his work to date but his engagement with the profession and his colleagues in boht hospital and community pharmacy practice.

 

Dr Byrne thanked his colleagues in community and hospital pharmacy for their continued support to the School and he commented that the short presentations of some of the current research ongoing presented further opportunity for deeper collaboration between community and hospital pharmacy both in further research and placement work.

 

The evening finished with some refreshments as old friends caught up with other old friends and it was wonderful so see so many past graduates of the SOP at UCC attend this event.

School of Pharmacy

Cógaisíocht

Cavanagh Pharmacy Building Room UG06 University College Cork

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