Hi Ihsan,

A good question to ask. Graduates should not mix between clinical pharmacy and pharmacy practice. In fact, pharmacy practice and clinical pharmacy are correlated. Pharmacy practice is the discipline that studies the pharmacists' role which was recently modified to go with closer proximity to patients than ever. Pharmacists now are giving more time to patients and have an active role in designing and modifying drug therapies. This new paradigm brought new set of responsibilities and duties for pharmacists and made them an important component of any healthcare team. In addition, interaction with other healthcare providers have increased. Pharmacists are very essential in both primary and secondary healthcare settings where clinical pharmacists are situated. Clinical pharmacy is, in most cases, available in secondary healthcare setting. Clinical pharmacists are essential in choosing drug therapy, modifying it, and calculating the most appropriate dose and dosage form. 

To summarize, pharmacy practice is provided in both: primary and secondary healthcare settings. Clinical pharmacists practice their profession in secondary healthcare settings depending on the concepts of the discipline of pharmacy practice.

Regards,

Dr. Rayes

Thank you very much Dr. Rayes for such a concise answer.

The Pharmacy Practice include both the Clinical Pharmacy and Community Pharmacy.  Clinical Pharmacy: means providing pharmaceutical care services at the bedside in the hospital, but community pharmacy means providing pharmaceutical care services  at community level (retail Outlets).

Hi Thirumaleswara Goud, 

I just want to comment on your valuable answer. You can't say that pharmacy practice 'includes' clinical pharmacy and community pharmacy. Actually speaking, these concepts are independent but come across depending on the position of the pharmacist whether in primary or secondary healthcare settings. Pharmacy practice is the discipline which studies the best criteria to provide pharmacy services and Pharmaceutical care regardless the position the pharmacist is situated. 

Regards,

Dr. Rayes

Pharmacy practice is a term that was introduced long time ago but just adopted to explain the evolution of pharmacy profession by Hepler and Strand in 1989. The evolution with three stages includes:

1. Traditional pharmacy practice (or product-oriented practice). At this stage, pharmacists are all involved in technical or product-related practice, such as dispensing, inventory control, sterile and non-sterile drug manufacturing, etc.

2. Clinical pharmacy practice (or service-oriented practice). Pharmacists at this stage try to get close to patients on the ward or OPD by providing clinical pharmacy services, e.g. DIS, ADR monitoring, TDM, iv drug admixture, etc.

3. Pharmaceutical care practice (or patient-focused practice). It is called medication therapy managment (MTM) in the US, or medicines management/optimisation in the UK. Pharmacists need to optimize the use of medicines in terms of benefits and risks by working closely with other healthcare professionals and patients.

To put it in short, pharmacy practice nowadays is a broad term that embraces all traditional practices, clinical pharmacy and pharmaceutical care regardless of settings. In the UK, to many pharmacists pharmacy practice is more involved in community pharmacy, whereas clinical pharmacy is mostly hospital-based or GP practice-based.

based on the applicable regulation in my country clinical pharmacy practice divided in two that is clinical pharmacy and non clinical pharmacy. Clinical pharmacy focus on patient but non clinical pharmacy focus on managerial such as procurement, drug storage etc. 

I thank all the contributors so far...  I want to start by saying or asserting that it will be inappropriate to accept that pharmacy practice and clinical pharmacy are the same even though that similarities exist between the two....  For example, a lecturer in the university is in the pharmacy practice through academics  but clinical pharmacy creates a room for the pharmacist --patient interaction... I t levies on the part of the pharmacist to look critically on the welfare of the students, ensure that appropriate and rational use of drugs are obtained by the patient.. 

Thanks, for the great answers provided,

I just do agree with the opinion that clinical pharmacy is a subdomain of pharmacy practice discipline. Not all pharmacy practice lecturers are clinical ones. Pharmacy practice should cover clinical, administrative, and social pharmacy related issues.

Clinical pharmacy involves all patient-oriented pharmacist activities to optimise the therapeutic outcome of the given meds. Traditionally, was thought to be limited only to hospital pharmacists, but my opinion is that role can be extended further to community pharmacists as well.

Best, 

I would say that Clinical Pharmacy is mainly a patients-oriented pharmacy practice at secondary and tertiary hospitals, where they should play a key roles in optimizing the healthcare plan for patients. While pharmacy practice is more broad discipline including traditional pharmacist as well as clinical pharmacist duties.

In informal, understanding, both clinical pharmacy and Pharmacy practice are one and the same which all dealing with patient oriented pharmacy especially in Ethiopia pharmacy schools.

But in clear and internationally agreed way, Pharmacy practice is a term that was introduced long time ago but just adopted to explain the evolution of pharmacy profession by Hepler and Strand in 1989. The evolution with three stages includes:

1. Traditional pharmacy practice (or product-oriented practice). At this stage, pharmacists are all involved in technical or product-related practice, such as dispensing, inventory control, sterile and non-sterile drug manufacturing, etc.

2. Clinical pharmacy practice (or service-oriented practice). Pharmacists at this stage try to get close to patients on the ward or OPD by providing clinical pharmacy services, e.g. DIS, ADR monitoring, TDM, iv drug admixture, etc.

3. Pharmaceutical care practice (or patient-focused practice). It is called medication therapy managment (MTM) in the US, or medicines management/optimization in the UK. Pharmacists need to optimize the use of medicines in terms of benefits and risks by working closely with other healthcare professionals and patients.

To put it in short, pharmacy practice nowadays is a broad term that embraces all traditional practices, clinical pharmacy and pharmaceutical care regardless of settings. In the UK, to many pharmacists pharmacy practice is more involved in community pharmacy, whereas clinical pharmacy is mostly hospital-based or GP practice-based. More recommendable to explain difference of clinical pharmacy and pharmacy practice.

Kindly see these papers/book chapters, which we have wrote on the topic

https://pure.hud.ac.uk/en/publications/pharmacy-practice-and-its-research-evolution-and-definitions

Article Defining pharmacy and its practice: a conceptual model for a...