KUDOS to Dr. Loyd V. Allen, Jr., PhD, RPh for His Recent Editorial Advocating More Adequate Training for Pharmacists to Be Proficient in both Nonsterile and Sterile Compounding!!!

Editorial: The price of a life and pharmacy education?

Academic and organizational pharmacy have been promoting the practice of clinical pharmacy since the 1960s (for about 50 years). In the 1970s and 1980s there was a significant change in the curricula of colleges of pharmacy to become more clinically oriented. These changes resulted in the removal of a significant number of science-based classes and laboratories that acquainted and instilled the importance of the science behind drug dosage forms and drug delivery systems and their manufacture, compounding, and actual use. A few schools have retained compounding and laboratories but some are optional; some schools have NO compounding course or laboratories.

Let's fast-forward to today. We now have compounding pharmacy that has significantly grown since the 1980s and sterile compounding since the 1990s. For example, let's look at the following:

• Almost 70,000 pharmacies are involved in compounding (e.g., independents, chains, hospitals, nuclear, specialty).
• Compounding is a $22 to $25 billion dollar industry annually.
• Over 80% of independent pharmacies compound.
• Generally all hospital pharmacies perform compounding.

These numbers simply emphasize that compounding pharmacy is a vital and growing part of health care today! The training of pharmacists has long been handled by colleges of pharmacy. However, we are in a situation where the colleges of pharmacy in most universities are not adequately training pharmacists to do the exact thing for which pharmacists are known, and there is no other profession charged with this responsibility.

Yes, there have been many unfortunate events in the past couple of years. The question remains, "Why are pharmacists not being trained to be proficient in both nonsterile and sterile compounding?" Since this is a significant part of pharmacy practice, is this a situation of "malpractice" at the college of pharmacy level or just slow response? When confronted with the question of why compounding isn't taught, college deans often say it costs too much! It almost looks like a price is being placed on a human life.

Let's hope that the "powers that be" will begin the process of re-incorporating the sciences, compounding, and sufficient laboratory experiences to properly train pharmacists in both nonsterile and sterile compounding; patients' lives depend on it! We can all work together to enhance the quality of pharmacy practice by changing to a curriculum that prepares students for the current practice of pharmacy!

Loyd V. Allen, Jr., PhD, RPh
Editor-in-Chief
International Journal of Pharmaceutical Compounding
Remington: The Science and Practice of Pharmacy Twenty-second edition

quoted from Compounding This Week Newsletter