Peking University Third Hospital

Today we had our second field trip to a hospital to view the pharmacy department, this time to Peking University Third Hospital. This was a very neat experience. We began with a brief introduction from one of the pharmacists about the hospital and the pharmacy. She discussed to various departments in the pharmacy at the hospital and also the way in which the pharmacy was structured and organized. It was very interesting because I anticipated there to be a stark difference between the American pharmacy profession and the Chinese pharmacy profession but there was not. The only major difference is that a large portion of the pharmacy is dedicated to TCM (about 40% of the prescriptions are for TCM). The pharmacy department has inpatient and outpatient services that are similar to what one would find in an American hospital and also a strong clinical pharmacy program.

The group outside Third Hospital with some of the pharmacists

After the brief introduction to the hospital we were given a tour. We saw a drug information room where hundreds of journals are kept. We also saw a lab that analyzes data collected during some Phase I clinical trials conducted in the hospital. Then we moved to an area where medicines were compounded in the hospital. This was a sterile area so we had to put on lab coats, hair nets and plastic shoe covers. We all looked pretty ridiculous.

After this we moved to the TCM warehouse where all the imported TCM drugs were imported. It was a huge room filled with boxes and cabinets containing various herbs and other medicines. Then we moved to a TCM pharmacy where they filled TCM prescriptions. There was huge cabinets with many drawers filled with medicines and a pharmacist who puts together the various herbs and other medicines prescribed by the physician.

The TCM pharmacist preparing the prescriptions

Finally we visited the inpatient pharmacy within the hospital. This looked very familiar. There were racks all around stocked with medicines we all recognized. We saw how the prescriptions were filled and the system used for the nurses to pick them up and deliver the medicines to the patients. This was a great experience to learn and experience the pharmacy system in China. It was interesting to see how similar it is to the pharmacy profession in America.

Zai jian!