Pharmacist involvement in a seizure clinic

The role of the clinical pharmacist in ambulatory care settings has expanded in the last several years. Various types of clinical pharmacy services in ambulatory clinics have been reported in the literature. This article seeks to describe the involvement of clinical pharmacists as primary-care givers in an outpatient neurology-seizure clinic of the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Atlanta, GA. The Neurology-Seizure clinical pharmacy services are provided by faculty, residents, and students from Mercer University Southern School of Pharmacy. The faculty members have been granted clinical privileges to practice in the ambulatory clinics in order to function with authority to perform such duties as giving medication renewals, and writing in the medical chart. In the clinic itself, the pharmacist is responsible for providing a medication profile, an initial interview with the patient, a minor neurological examination, presentation of the patient to the attending neurologist, writing of a SOAP (subjective, objective, assessment and plan) note, an end-of-appointment consultation, completion of a clinic flow sheet, maintenance of the clinic record, follow-up phone calls relating the results of anti-epileptic drug levels, and monthly quality assurance summaries. Clinical pharmacist-supervised primary care outpatient clinics can be rewarding endeavors. Through close patient contact and interaction with attending physicians, pharmacists can greatly assist with pharmaceutical care and provide expert drug management of seizure patients.