Pharmacy Functional Area: Specialty Pharmacy

During the several years that pharmacist spend in school there should be more room for education focused on specialty care. There are a wide variety of functional areas that a pharmacist can play a role in such as, transplant, oncology, MTM and pediatrics.

With more drugs being approved for the treatment and management of rare diseases, more education needs to be available for new students in pharmacy school.

Having an elective course available at universities can allow students to get more of a hands on experience on what specialty medication is about.

Specialty clinical rotations also gives students a great learning opportunity to learn about drugs that are not on the top 200 drug list. Many specialty medication are only slightly covered in classes, however; in reality mastering these medications takes time and lots of practice with patient care. Since these disease states are so complex, each patient will present slightly different than the textbook definition.

Many students graduate pharmacy school with the plan to specialize in a certain population, specialty pharmacy is one those options.

Many people have the misconception that a specialty pharmacy is the same as a retail pharmacy. While they both have similarities, specialty pharmacies take care of patients who have rare and complex disease states that require strict monitoring and strong adherence for optimal outcomes. This is where pharmacists play a huge role in patient care.