title: Achieving the World Health Organization's vision for clinical pharmacology.
abstract: Clinical pharmacology is a medical specialty whose practitioners teach, undertake research, frame policy, give information and advice about the actions and proper uses of medicines in humans and implement that knowledge in clinical practice. It involves a combination of several activities: drug discovery and development, training safe prescribers, providing objective and evidence-based therapeutic information to ethics, regulatory and pricing bodies, supporting patient care in an increasingly subspecialized arena where co-morbidities, polypharmacy, altered pharmacokinetics and drug interactions are common and developing and contributing to medicines policies for Governments. Clinical pharmacologists must advocate drug quality and they must also advocate for sustainability of the Discipline. However for this they need appropriate clinical service and training support. This Commentary discusses strategies to ensure the Discipline is supported by teaching, training and policy organizations, to communicate the full benefits of clinical pharmacology services, put a monetary value on clinical pharmacology services and to grow the clinical pharmacology workforce to support a growing clinical, academic and regulatory need.
authors.affiliation: Discipline of Clinical Pharmacology, University of Newcastle, Australia.|Department Clinical Pharmacology, University Hospital Tübingen, Germany.
authors.forename: Jennifer H
authors.initials: JH
authors.lastname: Martin
authors.affiliation: Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences and University of Toronto, Toronto.
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Henry
authors.affiliation: Dalhousie University Faculty of Medicine, Halifax, Canada.
authors.forename: Jean
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Gray
authors.affiliation: Clinical Pharmacology, St Vincent's Hospital Clinical School and Pharmacology, School of Medical Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, UNSW, Sydney.
authors.forename: Richard
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Day
authors.affiliation: The University of Adelaide, Royal Adelaide Hospital, South Australia, Australia.
authors.forename: Felix
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Bochner
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Pharmacology, Kings College London.
authors.forename: Albert
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Ferro
authors.affiliation: The Wolfson Centre for Personalized Medicine, Department of Molecular and Clinical Pharmacology, Institute of Translational Medicine, University of Liverpool, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Munir
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Pirmohamed
authors.affiliation: Department Clinical Pharmacology, University Hospital Tübingen, Germany.
authors.forename: Klaus
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Mörike
authors.affiliation: Department Clinical Pharmacology, University Hospital Tübingen, Germany.|Dr Margarete Fischer-Bosch-Institute of Clinical Pharmacology, Stuttgart, Germany.
authors.forename: Matthias
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Schwab
mesh_terms: D006801:Humans; D018802:Patient-Centered Care / Q000379:methods / Q000592:standards* / Q000639:trends; D010601:Pharmacology, Clinical / Q000193:education / Q000379:methods / Q000592:standards* / Q000639:trends; D010607:Pharmacy Service, Hospital / Q000379:methods / Q000592:standards* / Q000639:trends; D017410:Practice Guidelines as Topic; D000078329:Workforce; D014944:World Health Organization
keywords: clinical pharmacology; health workforce; leadership