Clinical: Not Always the Hospital Setting

So this is my first week at Prime Therapeutics in Bloomington, Minnesota. I am doing the AMCP/FMCP/Pfizer Managed Care Summer Internship and am already learning a wealth of information. Currently I am rotating through the Drug Formulary Development department, and seriously putting my evidence based medicine skills to use.

Updating/maintaining the drug formulary is a year long process. Each pharmacist is responsible for a few therapeutic topics, and have to make sure their respective chapters are complete and up to date. What does this involve? Looking at the literature, clinical guidelines, FDA reviews, etc. and applying their clinical knowledge to evaluate the value of a medication in therapy. The pharmacists also review new drug products as they are approved by the FDA and released. My preceptor asked if I knew Ampyra, and I quickly ran through my mind all the meds I learned in therapeutics. When I couldn't recall it, he said it was just released 2 months ago. I find it really cool that the pharmacists know about the drug products as they are released. They are on top of the information because they need to evaluate the safety, efficacy and uniqueness of new medications to see if such medications should be placed on formulary.

When talking to pharmacists within the department, they each emphasized to me how their job is very clinical. Before starting this internship, I did not realize that managed care is very clinical. When I hear the word "clinical" I used to think of the pharmacist working in the hospital setting, and I am sure many students think this as well. At Prime, the pharmacists definitely use their clinical skills in evaluating medical literature and making judgment to ensure that patients' drug therapy is safe, efficacious and cost efficient.