Pharmacist Continuing Education – May Be a Little Biased

Okay, it’s that time of the year again. It’s time to renew my pharmacy license. Every two years pharmacists must have 30 units of continuing education (CE) completed. That is necessary to ensure that the pharmacists stay current on new drugs, changes in the law, drug therapy, etc. There are many ways to complete the courses and pay a fee. There are live events, classes, and online courses. There are even cruises now that offer the opportunity to get the classes done.

I was recently reading a continuing education lesson about migraines, and I noticed that the typical lesson has a standard structure:

1 – Gives a definition of what the condition is.
2 – Describes the symptoms of the condition.
3 – Describes the typical prognosis, or course of the disease over time.
4 – Epidemiology – who is most likely to be affected by the condition.
5 – Lifestyle modifications that can improve the condition.
6 – Detailed description of the different types of drugs available for treatment, as well as side effects.
7 – Standard protocol for what drugs to try first, and if those don’t work which drug to try next.
8 – Drugs treatment options for prevention of the condition.
8 – Case study

And the very last paragraph there is the “Nonconventional Treatment Options” with a quick mention of the different types of “unconventional methods” that have been effective in treating migraines, including hypnosis, transcutaneous electrical stimulation, acupuncture, relaxation therapy, biofeedback, stress management, physical therapy, chiropractic, osteopathy, breathing exercises.

But after the mention, there is a disclaimer:

“It is important to note that these nonpharmacological therapies have not been proven through valid, statistically significant clinical trials, but their effectiveness is based mainly on self-assessment by patients.”

In other words, at the minimum, a pharmacist is expected to know that these therapies exist. However, the training teaches to quickly discredit them as “not been proven”. It’s actually done very subtly, but in the long run most pharmacist and doctors will natural discredit the alternatives as inferior. Not because they’ve studied and compared them to the conventional methods of doctors and drugs, but because that’s how they (we) are trained to think.