Our Department is affiliated to the TCD School of Pharmacy & Pharmaceutical Sciences and we have an extensive programme of undergraduate, pre-registration and postgraduate education and training, as well as doctoral and post-doctoral research. This affiliation with TCD School of Pharmacy was formalised in 2015 with the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding. At any given time the pharmacy is training two pharmacy interns and two pharmacists are participating in the MSc in Hospital Pharmacy with Trinity College Dublin. We are the first hospital in our jurisdiction to have pharmacists complete a prescribing course in Queen’s University, Belfast, with four Tallaght University Hospital pharmacists completing the course since 2015. Pharmacists are involved in ongoing teaching for undergraduate and postgraduate pharmacy, nursing and medical students.
Advanced Roles Training. PACT pharmacists: The extra responsibility and judgement required to deliver PACT led to the requirement that a PACT pharmacist has three years post-registration clinical pharmacy experience, a postgraduate qualification in hospital or clinical pharmacy and completes a training and validation programme. If you would like to learn more, see attached poster Collaborative Pharmaceutical Care At Tallaght University Hospital (PACT) - Development of Competency Training and Validation Programme.
Our pharmacy technicians also complete externally validated advanced role in training in e.g. Medicines Management and In-Process Checking.
We were the first Hospital in Ireland to employ a Research Pharmacist at Doctoral level. We have a well-established programme of bench research in collaboration with the Intensive Care Unit and the Department of Microbiology, on the pharmacokinetics of various antimicrobial agents during Continuous Renal Replacement Therapy. This research is done to improve patient outcomes through more precise dosing. We have a major practice research programme studying the impact and effectiveness of new models of clinical pharmacy service delivery. In 2014 we published our practice-changing paper Collaborative Pharmaceutical Care in an Irish Hospital and during 2015 we rolled out the new service model known as PACT, described below. We consider that this development epitomises the value and influence of research in our practice setting, in moving us to provider a safer, better service to patients.
