A manifesto for clinical pharmacology from principles to practice

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Abstract
1 This is a manifesto for UK clinical pharmacology.2 A clinical pharmacologist is a medically qualified practitioner who teaches, does research, frames policy, and gives information and advice about the actions and proper uses of medicines in humans and implements that knowledge in clinical practice. Those without medical qualifications who practise some aspect of clinical pharmacology could be described as, say, ‘applied pharmacologists’.3 Clinical pharmacology is operationally defined as a translational discipline in terms of the basic tools of human pharmacology (e.g. receptor pharmacology) and applied pharmacology (e.g. pharmacokinetics) and how they are used in drug discovery and development and in solving practical therapeutic problems in individuals and populations.4 Clinical pharmacologists are employed by universities, health‐care services, private organizations (such as drug companies), and regulatory agencies. They are• mentors and teachers, teaching laboratory science, clinical science, and all aspects of practical drug therapy as underpinned by the science of pharmacology; they write and edit didactic and reference texts;• researchers, covering research described by the operational definition;• clinicians, practising general medicine, clinical toxicology, other medical specialties, and general practice;• policy makers, framing local, national, and international medicines policy, including formularies, licensing of medicines and prescribing policies.5 The future of clinical pharmacology depends on the expansion and maintenance of a central core of practitioners (employed by universities or health‐care services), training clinical pharmacologists to practise in universities, health‐care services, private organizations, and regulatory agencies, and training other clinicians in the principles and practice of clinical pharmacology.

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