The pharmacy profession is fast becoming a knowledge-based job rather than skill based world over, Dr B Suresh, president, Pharmacy Council of India has opined. Sighting the changing role of pharmacists in the United States as an example, Dr Suresh said that pharmacist is seen as a counselor to the patient and medical practitioners in that country.

Delivering the keynote address at the inaugural function of the 3rd Annual Conference of Indian Hospital Pharmacists Association (IHPA) here on October 17, 2004, Dr Suresh wanted a similar change to take place in Indian pharmacy profession also. "The conventional D Pharm, B Pharm courses are no more conducted in the US. They have introduced a six-year Pharm D programme that offers doctorates to pharmacy professionals. We need to at least introduce compulsory continuing education programmes for our practicing pharmacists to update his knowledge in tune with the changing times", he said. Dr Suresh also announced the donation of a corpus amount to IHPA for instituting an annual award for the Best Hospital Pharmacist of the country.

The theme of the conference was "hospital pharmacist in rational drug use".

Speaking on the occasion, Ashwini Kumar, Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) stressed the need for a better coordination among hospital pharmacists, medical practitioners and regulatory authorities to keep track of adverse drug reactions for appropriate and timely action. Sighting the case of the recent withdrawal of Rofixocib formulations, DCGI said that the only reason why the country was not able to do it before the innovator announced the results of their study was the absence of effective ADR monitoring. He felt that a responsible pharmacy profession could curb to a great extent the menace of counterfeit drugs in the country. " Counterfeiting is not a big problem in other countries because they have strong base of community pharmacy and hospital pharmacy, the only channels through which the drugs can reach the consumer. If we have a good ADR system, we will be able to catch disturbing signals early enough", he said.

Dr Sudhir Joseph, deputy director, St Stephen's Hospital cautioned the gathering against the presence of irrational combinations. He also appreciated the efforts of his hospital pharmacists to "instantaneously" withdraw Rofixocib from the pharmacy counters the moment government decision was announced.

Hospital pharmacists from several states attended the technical sessions that followed. The experts who spoke during the sessions were Dr Suresh Saravdekar, Chief, Pharmacy Services, Grant Medical College, J J Hospital, Mumbai, Dr P Tiwari, Associate Professor (Pharmacy Practice) NIPER, Mohali and K G Revi Kumar, Principal, College of Pharmacy, Calicut. The sessions respectively were on 'role of hospital pharmacist in rational drug use', 'intervention to promote rational drug' and 'pharmacy practice in India and its future'.

Dr B D Miglani, Dr S S Agarwal, S L Nasa, secretary IHPA, A K Adhikari, president, IHPA, Dr R K Sharma, vice-president, IHPA, Devinder K Jain, course director, IHPA and Dr R S Gaud, chairman, LOC were also present on the occasion.