A four-week training program in the Department of Hospital Pharmacy at the Toyama Medical and Pharmaceutical University was started two years ago. We accepted 109 undergraduates last year. In 1998, we introduced a one week clinical pharmacy practice into this curriculum. Pairs of students took charge of in-patients and studied examinatios, treatment and medication. At the end of this program, the students presented a summary of their case studies from the viewpoint of clinical pharmaceutics. We evaluated this program using questionnaires to determine the effect of the newly introduced clinical pharmacy practice and to improve the curriculum. The results of the survey showed that many students were interested in clinical pharmacy training and suggested expanding this program even further.
Questionnaires distributed to the managers of other hospital pharmacies and local drugstores showed that almost half of them wanted to participate and receive undergraduates in their pharmacy. In addition, most also wanted to hire such students who had experience in the clinical pharmacy practice.
Although many students have high expectations for clinical pharmacy practice, pharmacists in the hospital do not have enough time to sufficiently take care of students. An educational program of clinical pharmacy practice for undergraduate students in the Pharmaceutical University is therefore important to bridge this gap. We expect that this curriculum could be further improved by introducing educational visits and surveying practices at other hospitals and drugstores.