Clinical pharmacy is a health science discipline in which pharmacists provide patient care that optimizes medication therapy and promotes health, and disease prevention. Clinical pharmacists work as part of the general practice team to improve value and outcomes from medicines and consult with and treat patients directly. This includes providing extra help to manage long-term conditions, advice for those on multiple medicines and better access to health checks. Pharmacists are drug experts. Clinical pharmacists take this knowledge and apply it to clinical scenarios. Clinical pharmacists perform functions beyond fundamental dispensing and order-processing activities. This typically involves optimization of medication selection, dosing, and monitoring. The difference between a pharmacist and a clinical pharmacist is that a clinical pharmacist performs duties beyond the entire dispensing and processing of orders. A clinical pharmacist is also qualified to optimize medication selection, determine dose, and monitor other pharmacists. Toxicology is a field of science that helps us understand the harmful effects that chemicals, substances, or situations, can have on people, animals, and the environment. For example, in agriculture, toxicology determines the possible health effects from exposure to pesticides or herbicides, or the effect of animal feed additives, such as growth factors, on people. Toxicology is also used in laboratory experiments on animals to establish dose-response relationships.
