Regional Report – Panama
As of August 2004 The College of Pharmacy in the University of Panama is offering a course entitled “Pharmaceutical Care in cancer pain management”. The lectures offer three credits and last a total of 48 hours. The lectures are given by Prof. Rosa Buitrago
de Tello, a Clinical Pharmacist, who is currently working on improving access to analgesics and pain relief in Panama.
Starting next July, the College of Health Science at the Universidad Latina will also offer this seminar in a two credit hour course. The seminar is designed to provide, from the perspective of pharmaceutical care, the basis of pain transmission, modulation, and types of pain (somatic,
visceral, and neuropathic). It will also address the sources of pain in cancer, the types of patients who seek attention for cancer pain, methods of evaluation of pain, the World Health Organization’s analgesic ladder, pharmacology and pharmacotherapy of pain management using
opioids, anti-inflammatorys, neuromodulators and medicines used to manage side effects. Following the American Society of Health System Pharmacists’s statement on the Pharmacist’s role in Hospice and Palliative Care, the students will learn to validate the physician prescription in pain management, to interact with the patient –through simulated cases – and
also they will learn the main regulations about prescription and dispensing of opioids. The seminar includes a visit to the palliative care unit within the National Cancer Institute were the student can observe the evaluation of a patient and choose a case so that they can interact with the patient to give
advise about the use of the medicines prescribed by their physician. The students will write a monograph on each topic covered and include a review of the case to be presented at the Palliative Care Unit. Finally, they will defend the monograph during the oral presentation. I am hopeful that this will help pharmacists and pharmacologists understand that they also play an important part in improving access to pain relief and the quality of life of patients with advanced, progressive conditions in Panama.
Professor Rosa Buitrago
Universidad de Panama
International Pain and Policy Fellow – Pain and Policy Studies Group, University of Wisconsin
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