Today was our first experience with a Thailand pharmacy! We broke up into three groups: two went to a hospital and my group went to a community pharmacy. We spent the morning listening to the pharmacist tell us about some of the differences in pharmacy between Thailand and the US. For example, they can get many drugs without a prescription, including antibiotics. Newer pharmacists are trying to get patients to have proper medication management, but they have a hard time competing with people using pharmacy strictly as a business. He also described the many different programs that pharmacies have been trying to start, such as home visits.
We were fortunate to be able to attend home visits with pharmacy students from Thailand! The students were all very nice and we were impressed with their ability to speak english (even though they said their english was poor).
During the home visits, the students would talk to them about their medical conditions, examine their medications, take blood pressure, and test blood sugar if needed. This program is very important for the thai people that cannot get to a hospital due to mobility issues or other reasons.
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