Pharmacy Practice
Pharmacy practice tests prescription handling, dispensing, patient counselling, inventory and legal records in community and hospital settings. The focus is safe, accurate communication.
Core rules
- Read the prescription completely: patient details, drug, strength, dosage form, route, frequency, duration and prescriber signature. Clarify illegible or incomplete orders rather than guessing.
- Standard abbreviations include qd once daily, bd twice daily, tds three times daily, qid four times daily, hs at bedtime, prn when required and stat immediately. Advise on food, storage and missed doses.
- Dispensing includes checking look-alike/sound-alike names, calculating quantities, labelling and recording. Counselling should cover indication, dose, duration, common adverse effects and when to return.
Worked example
A prescription reads: Amoxicillin 500 mg capsules tds for 5 days. Tds means three doses per day, so 3 × 5 = 15 capsules are needed. The total dose is 15 × 500 mg = 7.5 g. Label the frequency and duration clearly and advise completion of the course.
Traps
qd can be misread as qid; write daily instead. Avoid trailing zeros such as 1.0 mg, which can become 10 mg. Do not dispense a prescription-only medicine without a valid prescription. Paediatric doses need weight-based checking, not adult dose reduction by guesswork.