Pharmacists or their
pharmaceutical equivalents have been responsible for compounding medicines for
centuries. Recently this role has been challenged in the pharmaceutical
literature with suggestions and recommendations that it is inappropriate for
the pharmaceutical practitioner to compound medicines in a local pharmacy
environment. Notwithstanding this valid debate, it is clear that a vast array
of skills and knowledge with regard to medicines’ compounding has been accrued
and refined, certainly over the last two centuries. In the present environment
it is possible that this knowledge and skill base might be dispersed and ultimately
lost. However, it is not beyond the bounds of imagination to conceive that
there will be times, albeit possibly in the face of some form of environmental,
cultural or local emergency, when pharmacists might be called upon to
extemporaneously compound medicines when conventional supply chains are either
unavailable or have broken down.
This text has been designed with
a number of functions in mind. First, it is important to be aware of some of
the historical pathways that have led to the present technological position of
pharmacists. In addition, unless many of the antiquated measuring systems,
methodologies and formulations are preserved in some reference work, they might
be lost forever, or at least be totally unavailable except to the dogged
historian. Primarily, however, this work is intended as a reference-based
tutorial to the methods employed in medicines’ compounding. The text has been
designed to allow students and practitioners to be able to examine either all
or part of the subsequent chapters in order to familiarise themselves with the
compounding techniques necessary to produce products of appropriate quality and
efficacy. In addition, the text is supported by moving images in order to
augment the necessary techniques and expertise.
The text also has a role when
considering the design and implementation of standard operating pro-cedures
(SOPs) pertinent to certain sectors of professional practice today. Although we
do not expect all practitioners of pharmacy to be compounding medicines on a
daily basis, we hope that should the need arise this text will effectively
support any work of this nature that might be encountered.
This second edition has updated
the first edition and, to assist the student compounder, the text now includes
examples of the pharmaceutical label for each worked example.
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