Clinical pharmacy definition, required education, training and practice in Saudi Arabia: A position statement by the Saudi society of clinical pharmacy

Abstract

The Saudi Society of Clinical Pharmacy (SSCP) is a scientific and professional society in the field of clinical pharmacy that operates under the Saudi Commission for Health Specialties governance. The SSCP believes that there is a need to define and describe many aspects related to the clinical pharmacy profession in Saudi Arabia. Moreover, there is an increasing demand for promoting the concept of clinical pharmacy and developing a consensus regarding the scope of practice and clinical pharmacist's required postgraduate education and training in Saudi Arabia. This paper is intended to present several position statements by the SSCP that define the concept of clinical pharmacy, describe the required education and training, and highlight clinical pharmacists' scope of practice in Saudi Arabia. This paper calls for further investigations that examine the impact of clinical pharmacists on individual and population health levels.

Assessing the Perception of Pharmacy Students on Launching a Doctor of Pharmacy/Master of Public Health Dual Degree Program in Saudi Arabia: A Multi-Institutional Cross-Sectional Study

“…We believe that establishing such a program in Saudi Arabia is justified to expand the pharmacist's essential roles as patients move through the continuum of care. In addition, we believe that such programs will empower pharmacists to have ample opportunity to provide population-based care such as chronic disease management and prevention, health planning, informing, and improving quality of care, immunization delivery, noncommunicable diseases screening, preventive services, as well as many other opportunities [17,18]. In the future, we plan to assess other national stakeholders' perceptions regarding establishing such a program in Saudi Arabia.…”

Pharmacy practice research in Saudi Arabia; A bibliometrics analysis from (2000 to 2021)

“…Such increase, enrich the literature in different fields in the pharmacy in general and especially in the pharmacy practice. Another supporting evidence for the tremendous increase has been due to the increased attention/publicity of the PharmD/residency programs in the past 10 years, which attracts pharmacy graduates to pursue their post-graduate degrees in clinical practice ( Korayem et al, 2021 ). This increase can be also attributed to the requirements of residency programs offered by the Saudi Commission for Health Specialties that research record is one of the criteria for evaluation and acceptance ( Specialities, 2021 ).…”

Pharmacy education in Saudi Arabia: Achievements and challenges during the last two decades with a focus on Taif University as a case study

“…However, clinical pharmacy practice and education have been well-known and established in Saudi Arabia twenty years earlier and an advanced clinical pharmacy training (i.e., residency programs) was introduced officially into pharmacy education by the beginning of the twenty first century. SSCP defines clinical pharmacy as ‘‘the pharmacy profession’s division in which the licensed pharmacist obtains the required postgraduate training or education or to optimize patient outcomes via providing cost-effective, evidence based comprehensive medication management, promoting disease prevention, and assuring continuity of care at the individual and population levels” ( Korayem et al, 2021 ). The definition represents the core competencies that clinical pharmacists are expected to show while practicing in Saudi Arabia: optimizing patient therapy and outcomes, assessing medications cost-effectiveness, medication management, evidence-based practice, and health promotion and continuity of care.…”