2012 Volume 38 Issue 1 Pages 9-17
Pharmacists who will graduate from the 6-year program are expected to have more clinical ability than those who graduate from the 4-year program. In 2008, the Japanese Society of Hospital Pharmacists designed a plan, “New development of the expanded pharmacist's practices”. In some medical facilities and educational facilities some pharmacists and pharmacy students are performing new clinical practices even though the practices are not clarified in existing medical law.
So far, medical law has indicated the roles of pharmacists as only “dispensing drugs”. We should reconsider whether the concept of “dispensing drugs” includes some part of medical practices and how pharmacists should develop their expanded roles practically. We must discuss them concretely including the revision and the interpretation of the existing medical law.
