Japan Hospital Pharmacist Association targets pharmacy errors
It will be the first system of specialty certification for pharmacists, although there already is a system to accredit doctors in each medical association according to their field of specialization.
An official at the organization, which represents 33,000 pharmacists working at hospitals around the nation, said it hoped to expand the system in the future to help in the training of pharmacists in fields beside cancer.
There are currently about 300 kinds of anticancer drugs in use in Japan. High levels of knowledge and experience are necessary to ensure such drugs are correctly administered, given that the effectiveness and side effects of the drugs vary widely from one individual to another.
The pharmacist's job is further complicated by the steady stream of new anticancer medicines coming out of Europe and the United States.
Meanwhile, there seems to be no end to cases of improper administration of anticancer drugs in Japan.
In 2000, a 16-year-old girl died from an overdose of an anticancer drug at the Saitama Medical Center in Kawagoe, Saitama Prefecture. She is believed to have been given the drug daily for a week, when the prescribed dosage was once per week.
Overdoses of the same drug also were reported in Fukuoka and Yamagata prefectures in and after 2001.
In the Saitama case, a doctor treating the girl reportedly misread the directions for the drug before administering it to her.
The pharmacists association said her death could have been avoided if an expert pharmacist had overseen the administering of the drug.
This article continues in The Daily Yomiuri
Japonia farmacistului Asociatia de obiective erori de farmacie - Japan Hospital Pharmacist Association targets pharmacy errors - articole medicale engleza - startsanatate