How to train as a veterinary pharmacist
How to train as a veterinary pharmacist
Are you a pharmacist or pharmacy student interested in a career in animal healthcare?
What is veterinary pharmacy or a veterinary pharmacist?
There’s no legal definition of veterinary pharmacy. Traditionally, a veterinary pharmacist would probably be described as a pharmacist specialising in supplying veterinary medicines and other products for agricultural and farming use. To help pharmacists specialise in this area it used to be possible to study for a postgraduate diploma in Agricultural and Veterinary Pharmacy, but this qualification is no longer offered in the UK.
However, pharmacology plays an essential role in the clinical care of animals. Veterinary pharmacists specialise in drug therapy for animals, and have knowledge of how different medicines impact bodily processes, how medicines interact, and understand the regulations around medicines use. The route to becoming a veterinary pharmacist is to become a qualified pharmacist and then to do postgraduate study and/or gain experience in the veterinary sector. A registered pharmacist is one of the three categories of registered qualified person who is permitted under the Veterinary Medicines Regulations to prescribe or supply veterinary medicines (the other categories are veterinary surgeon and suitably qualified person [SQP]). Specifically, a registered pharmacist can:
supply POM-V (prescription-only medicine - veterinarian) medicines
prescribe and supply POM-VPS (prescription-only medicine - vet, pharmacist, SQP) medicines
supply NFA-VPS (non-food animal - vet, pharmacist, SQP) medicines.
A pharmacist can supply veterinary medicines from any registered pharmacy, or a registered veterinary practice, or from ‘SQP-registered premises’. This means that pharmacists working in ‘human’ pharmacies (physical or online) may be presented with veterinary prescriptions to fulfil, or they might offer for sale, and advise on, parasiticide medicines and perhaps other veterinary products. The Veterinary Medicines Regulations permit a pharmacist to break open any package containing a veterinary medicine for the purposes of supply (other than the immediate packaging of an injectable product). This has practical advantages for the optimal use of medicines, particularly in large-animal medicine, as it helps the user to avoid surplus and unwanted medicines when only proprietary packs that are larger than required for the dosing activity are available. When pharmacists carry out these activities they are practising veterinary pharmacy.
Where else are pharmacists practising veterinary pharmacy?
Pharmacists are working in the veterinary sector in a wide variety of roles. You might be inspired by reading about some of them below. If you are a pharmacist or pharmacy technician working in the veterinary sector and would like to tell others about your role, get in touch with andreatarr@veterinaryprescriber.org.
Veterinary pharmacist profiles
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Robert (Rob) Morris FRPharmS, MBA, Dip AgVet Pharm, Dip Marketing.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/rob-morris-a27ab812/
My role: Semi retired. AMTRA Assessor, various volunteering roles and advisor to RPS on veterinary pharmacy (unpaid!).
How I got here: I spent 3 years in community pharmacy in Birmingham with Boots and Lloyds and decided to try something different. I took a chance and joined an agricultural merchant/pharmacy owned by Rowlands Pharmacy in Wales dealing with farmers and growers. This was later sold to Wynnstay Farmers. We advised and supplied PML medicines (now POM-VPS) and also crop chemicals. I found the job fascinating and quickly learned how to apply my scientific knowledge to the agricultural sector. During this time, I completed the (first) Ag&Vet Diploma at Aston Uni.
Having gained the knowledge and experience at the sharp end I joined a multinational pharmaceutical company as a salesman covering Wales and the Midlands. I moved quickly into head office in a marketing role and managed a wide range of market-leading products including ruminant vaccines and anthelmintics. During this time, I gained an MBA at Warwick University and then moved on to Intervet where I became a large-animal business unit manager. I spent 21 years in various industry roles covering most species sectors including poultry vaccines.
During my time in industry, I persuaded my wife to take over a small community pharmacy in Northampton and we eventually had three pharmacies which meant I left the “day job” to help out in the family business. I’ve never particularly enjoyed community pharmacy but was OK as a locum and running the business side of things. During this time, I served as Chair of Northants LPC and also was a pharmacist committee member for the county NHS Trust.
I was determined to maintain my involvement with the veterinary industry so was appointed to Veterinary Products Committee (VPC) and AMTRA as an assessor. I have maintained contact with other veterinary pharmacists and also with RPS on veterinary matters.
I viewed my pharmacy degree as a broad scientific training that I was able to apply to the veterinary pharmaceutical industry. Rather like the pharmacists who go into industry I suppose but I was always more of a “commercial animal” - no pun intended!
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Greg Hyde, BSc (Hons) MRPharmS
https://www.linkedin.com/in/greg-hyde-3142b321b/
My role: Superintendent Pharmacist responsible for MWI Animal Health Pharmacy. Located in the Stoke-on-Trent distribution centre and providing a direct to home and/or farm dispensing service on behalf of Veterinary Surgeons. I have the remit of building and registering a pharmacy and leading teams to implement an integrated IT platform to allow electronic transfer of prescriptions for both companion and production animals. These are dispensed on behalf of the prescribing practice and dispatched directly to their clients home or farm address. I also play a wider role within the business, supporting our Quality team when needed and liaising with commercial and marketing teams as required.
How I got here: I’ve been a pharmacist for over 30 years. The early part of my career was spent as a front-line clinical pharmacist in human health where I provided the usual services expected of an NHS pharmacy, as well as being actively involved in newer clinical services as they became available for pharmacy teams to deliver.
As my operational experience grew, I became more interested in regulatory and compliance affairs, being employed as a Professional Development Pharmacist for a large multiple. This was a combined Head Office and Field Role, providing professional support to pharmacy teams, SOP and guidance production, as well as dealing with complaints, patient safety incidents and the like. There was large element of working with the regulators and service commissioners to ensure standards were clearly communicated and upheld, as well as working across boundaries when processes did not function quite as perfectly as they should. A natural progression of this was that I became Clinical Governance Manager for the business, running a team which dealt with all professional matters for a business with over 700 branches and deputising for the Superintendent Pharmacist when required. I had a further spell as a clinical pharmacist, before joining MWI Animal Health UK in November 2019.
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Gill Clarke BSc (Pharmacy) PhD Pharmaceutics MRPharmS
My role: Head of Pharmaceuticals, Veterinary Medicines Directorate. I lead the three scientific assessment teams (Quality, Human & Environmental Safety and Target Species Safety & Efficacy), which work closely together to assure the quality, safety and efficacy of veterinary medicines. The teams assess data from pharmaceutical companies to support their applications to market new veterinary medicines, or to make changes to existing medicines. We deal with hundreds of applications every year covering a wide and varied range of dosage forms, species and indications. We provide advice to pharmaceutical companies, as well as providing support to our internal colleagues in legislation, inspections and pharmacovigilance. The team is also involved in international projects, developing and delivery training to other veterinary medicine regulators.
How I got here: After qualifying as a Pharmacist, I studied for a PhD in Pharmaceutics, and then spent several years in the pharmaceutical industry working on the development of human medicines, initially within large pharma (GSK and Lilly) and latterly for a contract development organisation.
I joined the VMD in 2010, as a Senior Quality Assessor, despite having had little prior experience of veterinary medicines. However, the principles of quality are not so very different between veterinary and human medicines, there’s just more variety in terms of the different types of veterinary dosage forms and species! I then became Head of the Quality Assessment team, before moving into my current role as Head of Pharmaceuticals, where I am responsible for teams of pharmaceutical scientists, veterinary surgeons and toxicologists.
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Elizabeth Wright MPharm PgDip I completed my PgDip in veterinary Pharmacy with Harper Adams. I am a member of the GPHC, the Veterinary Pharmacy Association, VEPSIG,
My Role: Veterinary Pharmacist at The University of Edinburgh Vet School, mainly based in the Hospital for Small Animals, although I do also support the Equine Hospital and Farm Practice.
I'm responsible for the day to day running of the pharmacy in the Hospital for Small Animals, as well as ensuring all departments across the campus are compliant with the legal requirements and best practice rules affecting the use of medicines. Part of my role is to advise vets, looking at the availability of drugs, as well as the strength and form that would be most suitable for the particular patient. Some of my time is spent on finance, where I meet with drug reps regularly and decide which brand of each drug we stock, assign the rebates we receive to each department, and source the best value and quality consumables. I am also involved with health and safety, where I ensure that all staff and students know how to use medicines safely and appropriately, performing risk and COSHH assessments annually. My teaching responsibilities include lecturing on Pharmacy practice and pharmacy legislation, and leading pharmacy practice practical sessions.
How I got here: After graduating I spent my pre-reg year at Boots the Chemist and then continued into a pharmacist/store manager role with them. I decided to do some travelling after being qualified for just over 2 years and took a sabbatical. When I returned, I saw that a veterinary pharmacist job was being advertised at The University of Edinburgh and the pharmacy management skills I had learned whist working for Boots stood me in good stead and I got the job. I've been at Edinburgh University for 16 years now and have grown the pharmacy team from one to four staff members, written articles and book chapters for the British Small Animal Veterinary Association (BSAVA) and spoken at conferences.
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Andrea Tarr BPharm MSc MRPharmS
https://www.linkedin.com/in/veterinaryprescriber/
My role: Founder and Director of Veterinary Prescriber, an independent online reference and learning resource on veterinary medicines, for vets and other veterinary professionals. I built Veterinary Prescriber from scratch, starting in 2012. I am still involved in the writing and editing, but a lot of my time is spent on planning and commissioning the content, on building trust and awareness of the resource and all the other things that go into running a business. I am a member of the Veterinary Products Committee, an independent multi-disciplnary committee that advises the Veterinary Medicines Directorate (the UK’s veterinary medicines regulator).
How I got here: I started my career as a pharmacist in the NHS hospital service, where I specialised in medicines information and ran a district medicines information service. From there I moved to a medicines information role in the pharmaceutical industry with Parke-Davis Research Laboratories. Thinking about a possible future career in marketing, I worked as a hospital sales rep until I realised that that side of business was not for me. I then got the opportunity to be an editor on the independent medical publication, the Drug and Therapeutics Bulletin (DTB), which at the time was published by the Consumers’ Association and was bought by the government for all NHS prescribing doctors in England and Wales. I enjoyed a 20 career there, during which time I did a Master’s in Evidence-based Pharmacotherapy. A letter to DTB from a vet saying that vets needed independent information on medicines gave me the idea for starting Veterinary Prescriber. There are a lot of similarities between human and veterinary medicines information: the same evidence hierarchy, many similarities in regulation, and a lot of common drugs. I love making sense of medicines and providing impartial evidence-based and practical information to help veterinary professionals make decisions in the best interests of animals.
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Špela Oberstar MPharm, AFHEA. Memberships: GPhC, Association of Scottish Antimicrobial Pharmacists (ASAP) and Scottish Veterinary Antimicrobial Stewardship Group (SVASG)
My role: As a hospital veterinary pharmacist, I promote and support best-practice medication management and use for our veterinary patients. This can mean sourcing appropriate medication, reviewing unlicenced medication for appropriateness and safety in animals and liaising with vets and vet nurses to find treatment solutions that will be safe and effective. I also perform clinical audits, for example medication error auditing. I promote antimicrobial stewardship (AMS) by organising patient and staff-directed PR campaigns such as Antimicrobial Awareness Week, educate veterinary professionals and lead pharmacy-directed AMS interventions such as antimicrobial-use auditing. I teach pharmacy-related content to our pre- and post-graduate students and give inductions on appropriate medication management to our new staff members. Another of my responsibilities is to ensure that our hospital is in line with legislation and prepare, update and regularly review documentation and record keeping. Like any practising pharmacist, I also manage controlled drugs, appropriate medication storage and health-and-safety risk assessment of medication in relation to staff, patients and clients.
How I got here: I had a difficult time deciding between veterinary and medical school when choosing my career and I always thought of pharmacy as a path that gave me an entry point to both areas. How true this turned out to be when I saw that our veterinary hospital was looking for a pharmacist to cover a maternity leave. I quickly left community pharmacy and dived right into it. The jump was massive to begin with, as I had no previous veterinary medicines knowledge, but I have enjoyed immensely closing the knowledge gaps along the way. I stayed in the role part-time after my counterpart returned from maternity leave and I now combine this role with a hospital pharmacist post in an NHS hospital in order to also stay in touch with human medicine.
Who else supplies veterinary medicines?
Veterinary surgeons are permitted by the Veterinary Medicines Regulations (VMR) to supply veterinary medicines from a registered veterinary practice. Most veterinary practices supply their own medicines from dispensaries (like dispensing doctors). The prescribing vet is ultimately responsible for the supply and anyone supplying medicines under their direction must be deemed competent, but there is no requirement for anyone involved in dispensing medicines in a veterinary practice to have any formal dispensing or pharmacy qualification.
A suitably qualified person (SQP), also known as a Registered Animal Medicines Advisor is permitted by the VMR to supply POM-VPS veterinary medicines (certain vaccines, parasiticides and supplements for farm animals) and NFA-VPS medicines (companion-animal parasiticides). for specific species groups, according to the person’s SQP qualification. SQPs may supply veterinary medicines from an ‘SQP-registered premises’, a registered pharmacy or a registered veterinary practice. SQPs are typically employed in agricultural merchants, saddlers and pet stores. In veterinary practice, many registered veterinary nurses and other staff have acquired the SQP qualification.
How can pharmacists learn more about veterinary medicines?
There is no specific postgraduate qualification in veterinary pharmacy offered in the UK at present. Options for further study include the SQP qualification, which is offered by the SQP regulators AMTRA, Vetpol (which also offers a Veterinary Pharmacy Manager course) and VetSkill. The Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons (RCVS) offers a series of free webinars “Managing veterinary medicines: staying legal and promoting safety”. Look out for training days in Veterinary Dispensary Management offered by the Veterinary Medicines Directorate (the veterinary medicines regulator in the UK). Or join Veterinary Prescriber’s Virtual Veterinary Medicines Academy to learn about all aspects of veterinary medicines (you don’t need to be a vet to join). The National Animal Disease Information Service (NADIS) has educational content on farm animals.
Other helpful links
Society of Veterinary Hospital Pharmacists
Date of publication 22 September 2022, updated 10 February 2023.