Pharmacy Product Info

Monday, January 29, 2007

Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain

The Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain (RPSGB) is the statutory narrow and professional body for pharmacists in England, Scotland and Wales. It has its head office at 1, Lambeth High Street, in the Borough of Lambeth in London. The society also has offices in Cardiff and Edinburgh. The publishing trade of the society - RPS Publishing - operates two divisions The Pharmaceutical Press which publishes textbooks, and PJ Publications, which publishes the weekly specialized journal The Pharmaceutical Journal and the monthly Hospital Pharmacist.

The main objective of the RPSGB is to lead, regulate (as a Statutory instrument) develop and endorse the pharmaceutical profession. All pharmacists in Great Britain (about 44,000) must be registered with the Society. The Society is curious amongst healthcare regulators in that it has its individual inspectorate. To become a member of the Society an individual must typically have completed an MPharm or (before 1997) a BPharm or BSc (pharmacy) degree, 45 weeks of pre-registration training and pass the registration examination. This gives them the correct to use the title MRPharmS and perform as a pharmacist in Great Britain. Fellowships (FRPharmS) may moreover be awarded.

The Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain was founded on April 15, 1841 by William Allen FRS, Jacob Bell, Daniel Hanbury, John Bell and additional London chemists and druggists, at a meeting in the Crown and Anchor Tavern, Strand, London. William Allen was its first President, and the society rapidly took premises at 17 Bloomsbury Square, London where a School of Pharmacy was recognized in which botany and materia medical were a significant part of the students’ curriculum. In 1843, Queen Victoria decided the Society its Royal Charter. In 1988, Queen Elizabeth II decided that the title "Royal" should be granted to the society.

Wednesday, January 24, 2007

Medicaid

Medicaid is the US health insurance program for persons and families with little incomes and resources. It is equally funded by the states and federal government, and is managed by the states. Among the groups of people served by Medicaid are qualified low-income parents, children, seniors, and people with disabilities. Medicaid is the biggest source of funding for medical and health-related services for people with partial income.

Although their names are alike, Medicaid and Medicare are extremely different programs. Medicare is a right program funded entirely at the federal level, while Medicaid is a social interests program with both state and national funding. One criterion for Medicaid eligibility is being insolvent under the program's guidelines -this plays no deliberation in determining Medicare coverage.

While Medicaid and Medicare wrap similar groups, there are significant differences between them. For example, Medicaid covers a wider range of health care services than Medicare. In 2001, about 6.5 million Americans were enrolled in mutually Medicare and Medicaid, also known as Medicare dual qualified.

Medicaid is a combined federal-state program that provides health insurance treatment to low-income children, seniors and people with disabilities. While Congress and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services set out the major rules under which Medicaid operates, every state runs its own program. As a consequence, the eligibility rules are somewhat dissimilar in every state, although the framework is the same all over the country.

Both the centralized government and most state governments have made numerous changes to the eligibility requirements and limitations over the years. This has most lately occurred with the passage of the Deficit Reduction Act (DRA) of 2005 which appreciably changed rules governing the treatment of asset transfers and homes of nursing home residents. The completion of these changes will precede state-by-state over the next few years. To be sure of your rights under the Act you should ask an expert, as the rules are complex. The DRA now requires that anyone seeking Medicaid must make documents to prove that they are a United States citizen or resident alien.

Thursday, January 18, 2007

Nuclear medicine

Nuclear medicine is a division of medicine and medical imaging that uses the nuclear properties of substance in diagnosis and therapy. Many procedures in nuclear medicine use radionuclide, or pharmaceuticals that have been labeled with radionuclide (radiopharmaceuticals). In diagnosis, radioactive substances are administered to patients and the radiation emitted is calculated. The bulk of these diagnostic tests involve the configuration of an image using a gamma camera. Imaging may also be referred to as radionuclide imaging or nuclear scintigraphy. Other diagnostic tests use probes to obtain measurements from parts of the body, or counters for the measurement of samples taken from the patient. In therapy, radionuclides are administered to luxury disease or provide palliative pain relief. For instance, administration of Iodine-131 is often used for the action of thyrotoxicosis and thyroid cancer.

Nuclear medicine imaging tests vary from most other imaging modalities in that the tests mainly show the physiological function of the system being investigated as divergent to the anatomy. In several centers, the nuclear medicine images can be superimposed on images from modalities such as CT or MRI to highlight which division of the body the radiopharmaceutical is concentrated in. This practice is frequently referred to as image fusion.

Nuclear medicine diagnostic tests are typically provided by a dedicated department within a hospital and may include services for the preparation of radiopharmaceuticals. The exact name of a department can differ from hospital to hospital, with the most ordinary names being the nuclear medicine department and the radioisotope department.

The end effect of the nuclear medicine imaging process is a "dataset" comprising one or additional images. In multi-image datasets the array of images may symbolize a time sequence (i.e. cine or movie) often called a "dynamic" dataset, a cardiac gated time sequence, or a spatial series where the gamma-camera is moved qualified to the patient. SPECT (single photon release computed tomography) is the procedure by which images acquired from a rotating gamma-camera are reconstructed to create an image of a "slice" through the patient at an exacting position. A compilation of parallel slices form a slice-stack, a three-dimensional symbol of the distribution of radionuclide in the patient.

Tuesday, January 02, 2007

Pharmacopoeia

Pharmacopoeia, in its contemporary technical sense, is a book containing directions for the recognition of samples and the preparation of compound medicines, and published by the ability of a government or a medical or pharmaceutical society. The name has also been applied to identical compendiums issued by private individuals.

The first work of the kind published under government authority appears to have been that of Nuremberg in 1542; a passing student named Valerius Cordus showed a group of medical receipts, which he had chosen from the writings of the most eminent medical authorities, to the physicians of the town, who urged him to print it for the profit of the apothecaries, and obtained for his work the sanction of the senatus.

A previous work, known as the Antidotarium Florentinum, had been published below the authority of the college of medicine of Florence. The phrase pharmacopoeia first appears as a separate title in a work published at Basel in 1561 by Dr A. Foes, but does not show to have come into common use until the beginning of the 17th century. Before 1542 the works chiefly used by apothecaries were the treatises on simples by Avicenna and Serapion; the De synonymis and Quid pro quo of Simon Januensis; the Liber servitoris of Bulchasim Ben Aberazerim, which described the arrangements made from plants, animals and minerals, and was the type of the chemical portion of new pharmacopoeias; and the Antidotarium of Nicolaus de Salerno, containing Galenical compounds set alphabetically.

International Pharmacopoeia - Increased facilities for travel have brought into better prominence the importance of an approach to consistency in the formulae of the more powerful remedies, in order to avoid danger to patients when a prescription is dispensed in a dissimilar country from that in which it was written. Attempts have been complete by international pharmaceutical and medical conferences to resolve a basis on which an international pharmacopoeia could be organized, but due to national jealousies and the attempt to include too several preparations nothing has yet been achieved.