Pharmacists can provide better patient care: Dr Padmaraj Hegde

March 01, 2016

Pharmacists can provide better patient care and help busy physicians in improving treatment outcomes, said Dr. Padmaraj Hegde (Deputy Medical Superintendent, Kasturba Hospital, Manipal), who was inaugurating the CME program for pharmacists, organized by the Department of Pharmacy Practice, MCOPS, Manipal Academy of Higher Education in association with Pfizer Inc. on 28th Feb 2016 at Kasturba Hospital, Manipal. The CME program was based on the Pharmacists Training Module prepared by the PharmD students (Mr.Munawar PV, Mr.Mazaher Kaki and Ms. Shivani Mital) of Manipal College of Pharmaceutical sciences (MCOPS) under the guidance of Dr. Girish Thunga, Assistant Professor, Department of Pharmacy Practice. The module covered the basic skills required for the hospital pharmacists that include Leadership skills, Patient counseling, Medication error and Management of common ailments using OTC drugs. The sessions were handled by Dr. M Surulivel Rajan, Associate professor, Department of Pharmacy Practice and Dr. Girish Thunga. Dr. Sravanth Karthik Chelari, Regional Medical Advisor, Pfizer, spoke on the role of pharmacists in improving patient treatment outcomes. Mr. Prasanna Kumar K, Chief Pharmacist, Kasturba hospital, Attavar, Mangalore and Mr. Suresh Chandra Pai, Chief Pharmacist, Kasturba Hospital, Manipal presided over the event. In today’s highly competent and globalized world, it is necessary to have such events more frequently, said one of the participants. The students said that more modules are being prepared for training practicing pharmacists to make them competent globally.