Global Standards for Pharmaceutical Education

Abstract

The environment surrounding clinical pharmacy practices has changed greatly in the past thirty-some years, basically since the end of the 1980s. During this period, the separation ratio between pharmacists' dispensing and prescribing functions has increased, from 12% to 74%. The three big events in this timeline include the beginning of pharmaceutical care for inpatients by hospital pharmacists in 1988; the transition of pharmacy schools to a six-year educational program in 2006; and the revision of Pharmaceutical Affairs Law, as well as its name change, in 2014. In concert with these events, the central role of the pharmacist has changed from being dispensing-centric to an active participation in patient treatment via medication as a member of the medical care team. As a key participant in these changes, the author helped to improve the operations of hospital pharmacists, strengthened their role with advanced information and communication technology (ICT) support, and established a baseline for clinical pharmacy research and education. Accordingly, in this paper, the history of this development will be reviewed, and the future of a global standard for pharmaceutical education will be discussed.