March is Pharmacy Awareness Month (PAM) in Canada! This annual event celebrating the profession of Pharmacy recognizes the contributions of pharmacists, pharmacy technicians and pharmacy assistants to the health care and wellness of patients.

At Vancouver General Hospital (VGH), our pharmacy staff include clinical pharmacists, distribution and medication management pharmacists, pharmacy technicians, and pharmacy assistants, who all play active roles in ensuring patients receive safe, effective and appropriate medication therapy.  This short video describes some of the services that our pharmacy provides.

Pharmacists contribute in many areas

Our pharmacy staff are actively involved in numerous activities to improve the care of our patients. In the Emergency Department, clinical pharmacists conduct detailed medication histories on patients to identify any preventable adverse drug reactions from their medications.

On the hospital units, clinical pharmacists work together with the health care team to ensure patients are on the best medications for their conditions, while our medication management pharmacists, and pharmacy technicians and assistants, make sure patients receive the correct medications in a timely manner.

Clinical pharmacists also see patients in consultation at the hospital’s outpatient clinics, including the Geriatric Rapid Access, Heart Failure and Atrial Fibrillation, Leukemia/Bone Marrow Transplant, Nephrology/Acute Kidney Injury and the Solid Organ Transplant clinics.

An award-winning team

The Pharmacy Department is actively involved in teaching pharmacy, medical and nursing trainees, and in clinical research with other health care staff. This year, Dr. Karen Shalansky and her multi-disciplinary research team received the Canadian Society of Hospital Pharmacists National Pharmacy Specialties Award for their project determining risk factors for tobramycin-impregnated bone cement associated with acute kidney injury. As a partner in the antimicrobial stewardship program at VCH (ASPIRES), we were also recognized with a BC Health Care Award of Merit for the team.

Visit our booth and you could win

For PAM, we have planned a number of fun activities to help celebrate this event during the month of March. Please join us at our information booth in the VGH main concourse (across from the gift shop) to learn about our pharmacy services and chat with our Pharmacy Team. Visitors who spin the wheel and answer pharmacy trivia questions could win a prize!