Advanced Clinical Training in Pain Management and Parkinson's Disease Available

The ASCP Foundation's strategic plan includes the following educational objectives:

Create educational resources that foster the advancement of consultant and senior care pharmacy practice
Design, coordinate, and conduct educational programs and initiatives that enhance appropriate, effective, and safe medication use in the senior population

To help meet these objectives, the ASCP Foundation conducts post-graduate pharmacotherapy traineeships to create experts in specific therapeutic areas and prepare them to provide a high level of pharmaceutical care to their patients.

The ASCP Foundation's pharmacotherapy traineeships are five-day, intensive, patient-focused, interdisciplinary, experiential educational programs at clinical practice sites. They are designed to empower pharmacists to change the way they perceive their role in patient care and create advocates for appropriate care and treatment of their patients. Traineeship participants typically describe the experience as inspiring, practice altering, and the best investment of time in their entire career.

Pain Management Traineeship

Session Dates: June 8-12, 2009
Application Deadline: March 13, 2009
Traineeship Sites: Hospice of the Western Reserve, Cleveland, Ohio and Heartland of Mentor, Mentor, Ohio

The Pain Management Traineeship provides didactic and experiential training in the most current information concerning the etiology, recognition, assessment, and pharmacologic and non-pharmacologic management of acute and chronic pain through interaction with an interdisciplinary team caring for patients with these conditions. The psychological, emotional, and social supports required, cultural issues, and patient education needed for appropriate care also are addressed during the traineeship.

With the intensive training provided through the Pain Management Traineeship, pharmacists can greatly influence the appropriateness, effectiveness, and safety of pharmacotherapy in patients with acute and chronic pain and improve the quality of life for these patients.

For additional information about the traineeship, read the General Program Information at: http://www.ascpfoundation.org/traineeships/train_painmanagement.cfm
and the Policies and Guidelines at:
http://www.ascpfoundation.org/traineeships/train_painmanagement_pol.cfm

The Pain Management Traineeship is supported by an educational grant from Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuticals/Covidien.

Parkinson's Disease Pharmacotherapy Traineeship

Session Dates: July 20-24 and October 5-9, 2009
Application Deadline: April 24, 2009
Traineeship Site: Parkinson's Disease and Movement Disorders Center, Northwestern
University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, Illinois

The Parkinson's Disease Pharmacotherapy Traineeship provides didactic and experiential training in the most current information concerning the etiology, recognition, assessment, and medication management of Parkinson's disease and other movement disorders through interaction with an interdisciplinary team caring for patients with these disorders. The psychological, emotional, and social supports required, cultural issues, and patient education needed for appropriate care also are addressed during the traineeship.

With the intensive training provided through the Parkinson's Disease Pharmacotherapy Traineeship, pharmacists can greatly influence the appropriateness, effectiveness, and safety of pharmacotherapy in patients with Parkinson's disease and other movement disorders and improve the quality of life for patients with these conditions.

For additional information about the traineeship, read the General Program Information at
http://www.ascpfoundation.org/traineeships/train_parkinson.cfm
and the Policies and Guidelines at
http://www.ascpfoundation.org/traineeships/train_parkinson_pol.cfm.

The Parkinson's Disease Pharmacotherapy Traineeship is supported by an educational grant from Teva Neuroscience.

Some eye-opening facts and figures:

More than 44,000 deaths result each year from medication-related errors, 7,000 of which are due to mistakes in prescribing or dispensing the wrong drugs.

Nearly one in five elderly Americans living in the community is taking at least one drug generally deemed unsuitable for their age group because safer alternative medications are available.

Consultant pharmacists’ services are so important in safeguarding the health and safety of nursing home residents that regular pharmacist reviews of each resident’s drug therapy are mandated by law in federally funded facilities.

In nursing homes alone, patient counseling, medication monitoring, and other services provided by consultant pharmacists save close to $3.6 billion each year in prevented hospitalizations and reduced medication costs.