An Update of Respiratory Medicine by a Clinical Pharmacist

22 March 2016 – Pharmacists and pharmacy students from various universities attended a talk entitled ‘Updates on Respiratory Medicine’ at the IMU’s Bukit Jalil Campus. The talk is a joint collaboration between the Malaysian Pharmaceutical Society-Young Pharmacist Chapter (MPS-YPC) and IMU Alumni. The speaker for this talk was Nager Devi Vampanan, who is a registered pharmacist with Pharmacy Board of Malaysia. She is currently working as a respiratory pharmacist in Institut Perubatan Respiratori. Prior to this, she completed her Provisionally Registered Pharmacist (PRP) trainning in Hospital Kuala Lumpur (HKL). The talk was mainly focused on pharmacotherapy challenges in managing patients with chronic lung disorders. The speaker discussed recent updates in asthma management based on the latest Global Initiative for Asthma (GINA) guideline. GINA was launched in 1993 and updated annually, by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, National Institute of Health, USA and World Health Organisation. GINA is working to improve the lives of people with asthma in every corner of the globe. The speaker also shared with the audience about the management of stable chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), a common pathological condition with similar presenting symptoms with asthma. Under the Global Initiative for Chronic Obstructive Lung Disease (GOLD), healthcare professionals are working closely to raise awareness of COPD and to improve prevention and treatment of this lung disease for patients around the world. The speaker further highlighted the challenges in managing patients with the Asthma and COPD Overlap Syndrome (ACOS). There is always a debate about the role of steroid inhaler in managing asthma patients. Nager commented that the steroid inhaler is still the gold standard in asthma management. The concern in relation to its usage is usually dose dependent. Thus, a pharmacist will recommend the patient prescribed with steroid inhaler to be closely monitored and appropriate counselling will be provided by pharmacist during dispensing. We had great interaction between the participants and the speaker during the talk. The presentation of certificate and gift as a token of appreciation to the speaker by Mr Lim Shi Hao, the chairperson of MPS-YPC ended the talk.