Pharmacy

• Academic integrity

  The quality of being honest, having strong moral principles
• Components of academic integrity

  • Honesty
  • Trust
  • Fairness
  • Professionalism
  • Respect
  • Courage
  • Responsibility
• "It is a condition of each student's admission to candidature that the student complies with this policy"
• Examples of academic dishonesty

  • International organised corruption
  • Student lack of experience – culture of sharing
  • Trying to outsmart the system
  • Recycling (work that is built on from previous submitted or from a previous unit of study might be allowed depending if the resubmission is allowed by the examiner and whether the previous work + nature of its use is acknowledged)
  • Lack of referencing or acknowledging source
  • Dishonest plagiarism
  • Fabricating data
  • Communicating with another candidate during an exam
  • Bringing in forbidden material, e.g. notebooks, computers, etc
  • Consulting about the exam outside of the exam without permission
  • Copying another student during an exam
  • Use of electronic devices to access information during an exam
• Plagiarism


  Presenting someone else's work as your own by presenting, copying or reproducing it without proper acknowledgement of the source
• Plagiarism can be unintentional but can arise due to poor referencing, error, inability to paraphrase, or inhibition about writing in the students' own words
• Dishonest plagiarism


  Knowingly presenting another's work, ideas, findings as one's own with acknowledgement with the intent to deceive the examiner into believing that the content is original to the student
• Acknowledgement of source


  Identifying with the conventions of the discipline, at least the author/s of the work and the place from which the work or part of the work was sourced
• Legitimate practices

  • Legitimate cooperation- constructive educational & intellectual practice to facilitate optimal learning outcomes through the interactions between students, this can include researching, writing, presenting joint work; discussing general themes + concepts; interpreting assessment criteria; informal study or discussion groups; strengthening academic writing skills through peer assistance
  • Collusion is completely different from cooperation
• Community pharmacist

  Uses their expertise to optimise health outcomes and minimise medication misadventure as well as promoting their safe use and avoiding harm to users and others in the community
• Roles of community pharmacists

  • Supplying without a prescription
  • Supplying through dispensing - script or chart
  • Counselling
  • Non-supply related functions
• Dispensing-related roles of community pharmacists

  • Compounding
  • Re-packaging
  • Medication management apps
  • Opiate substitution therapy
  • Staged supply
  • Continued dispensing (limited re-prescribing)
  • Hospital dispensing (reconciliation, discharge+counselling)
• Types of technology used by community pharmacists


  • Digital technology
  • Robotic dispensing
  • Electronic record keeping
  • Communication
  • Counselling+medication management apps
• Compounding medicines

  1. Determine the required formulation

  2. Apply risk management strategies

  3. Preparation, applying appropriate methods, techniques and equipment

  4. Complete appropriate documentation

  5. Appropriate packaging and labelling
• Dose administration aid service


  Medicines are divided into individual doses and arranged according to dose schedule throughout the day
• Health promotion


  Enables people to increase their control over their health and its determinants, to overall improve their wellbeing
• Opioid substitution program

  State government program that provides controlled dispensing, supervised dosing with replacement treatments such as methadone and buprenorphine/naloxone
• Staged supply


  Clinically-indicated, structured pharmacist service involving the supply of medicine to a patient in periodic instalments as requested by the prescriber
• Community pharmacy services

  • Dispensing
  • Staged supply of prescribed medicines services
  • Dose administration aid (DAA) services
  • MedsCheck and Diabetes MedsCheck services
  • Home Medicines Review (HMR) and Residential Medication Management Review (RMMR) services
• Clinical intervention

  A professional activity undertaken by a registered pharmacist who is directed in improving the quality use of medicines, as a result in a recommendation for a change in patient's medication therapy, means of administration or medication-taking behaviour
• Supply - primary care (minor ailments)


  • Scheduled medicines (unscheduled, S2, S3)
  • S3 recordable
  • Immunisation (funded for COVID)
  • Pseudoephedrine supply
  • Smoking cessation
  • First aid + minor ailments
  • Diabetes supply (NDSS)
  • Continence aids payment scheme
  • Complementary medicines
  • Baby health clinics
• Non-supply roles of community pharmacists

  • MedsCheck
  • Diabetes and asthma disease state management
  • Atrial fibrillation screening in pharmacies using an iPhone ECG
  • Weight management services
  • Needle exchange programs
  • Return of medicines (RUM) – yellow bins
  • Sleep apnoea services
  • BP testing
  • Pharmacogenomics (personalised medicines)
• Ethics

  The study of what is considered right or wrong, reflecting the norms of social constructs, not necessarily based on religious or spiritual foundations but on the logic of reason
• Professionalism

  Consists of knowledge, skills and behaviour. Professionals are given certain legal privileges by society, including a quasi-monopoly to practise within a certain professional area of expertise. With these privileges, professionals accept the responsibility to maintain a standard of conduct beyond an unthinking conformity to the law or the perfunctory performance of a technical skill.
• Moral theory is based on the logic of reason, not spiritual foundations
• Moral theories

  • Utilitarianism - greater good for greater number
  • Individualism - connected to reason and respect for the individual, based on social justice
• E.g. Blackmores Deal known as the "Coke and Fries"


  • Pressured the public to buy vitamins with their prescription, especially when they might not need it
  • This ultimately caused damage on the Guild which could have possibly lost the trust of consumers
• Professionalism


  Consists of knowledge, skills and behaviour
• Professionals

  • Given certain legal privileges by society, including a quasi-monopoly to practise within a certain professional area of expertise
  • With these privileges, professionals accept the responsibility to maintain a standard of conduct beyond an unthinking conformity to the law or the perfunctory performance of a technical skill
• Differences between a profession vs business/occupation

  • Public interest is paramount
  • The client's interest above most else
  • Exercise of judgement
  • Code of ethics
  • Public trust
  • Self regulation
  • Limited external regulation
• Profession


  • A group of individuals who adhere to high ethical standards, accepted by the public as possessing special knowledge and skills in a body of learning from a education at a high level
  • The concept that responsibility for welfare, health and safety of the community shall take precedence over other considerations
• Professional ethics

  • Concern for collective self-discipline is the very essence of professional ethics
  • Provides a detailed operational blue print of norms of professional conduct
• Phases of transition

  • 19th century: change in practice due to industrialisation of pharmaceutics
  • World War I + II
  • Nuremburg; Helsinki
  • Consumerism: rights of consumer; autonomy + justice
  • Feminism: relationships, power and domination; justice
  • Highly specialised medications
  • Consumer expectations elevated
• Bioethics principles

  • Autonomy: self-determination
  • Beneficence: best interests of the patient
  • Non-maleficence: do no harm
  • Justice: fair dealing and equity in distribution
• Components of the Code of Ethics

  • Competency, care and integrity
• Medication reconciliation


  This occurs when medicines that a patient should be prescribed match those that are prescribed during a transition of care
• More than 50% of medication histories have at least 1 error
• 50% of medication errors occur at transition of care
• Hospital drug distribution systems


  • Imprest System
  • Controlled access cabinets
  • Barcoding
  • Robotics
  • Pneumatic tube system - tubing system in the hospital where medication is sent through to the patient's room
  • Sterile preparations and compounding
• Some areas of practice and specialties


  • Cardiology
  • Critical care
  • Drug information
  • Emergency medicine
  • Infectious disease
  • Investigational drugs
  • Oncology and haematology
  • Paediatrics
  • Pain and palliative care
  • Transplant