References

• Watkins, Elizabeth Siegel, “From History of Pharmacy to Pharmaceutical History,” Pharmacy in History, 51 (no. 1, 2009), 3–13.

• (Japanese) Asai,T. (1985). Nyokan Tūkai. Tokyo: Kōdan-Sha.

• (French) Titsingh, Isaac, ed. (1834). [Siyun-sai Rin-siyo/Hayashi Gahō, 1652], Nipon o daï itsi ran; ou, Annales des empereurs du Japon. Paris: Oriental Translation Fund of Great Britain and Ireland....Click link for digitized, full-text copy of this book (in French)

• High Performance Pharmacy - A landmark study in hospital pharmacy performance based on an extensive literature review and the collective experience of the Health Systems Pharmacy Executive Alliance.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Pharmacy

Look up pharmacy in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• Pharmacy Professionals Guide Guide for Pharmacy students and Teachers Pharmacists

• Navigator History of Pharmacy Collection of internet resources related to the history of pharmacy

• RPSGB Museum Information Sheets Illustrated information sheets on objects in the history of pharmacy

• History of Pharmacy Web Pages Perbo's History of Pharmacy Web Pages

• Soderlund Pharmacy Museum - Information about the history of the American Drugstore

• The Lloyd Library Library of botanical, medical, pharmaceutical, and scientific books and periodicals, and works of allied sciences

• American Institute of the History of Pharmacy American Institute of the History of Pharmacy—resources in the history of pharmacy

• International Pharmaceutical Federation (FIP) Federation representing national associations of pharmacists and pharmaceutical scientists. Information and resources relating to pharmacy education, practice, science and policy

• Pharmaboard FSR BioPharm German association of pharmacy students

Other

• The Virtual Library of Pharmacy - Extensive index of pharmacy-related resources, including information on careers in pharmacy, pharmacy schools, pharmaceutical companies, associations and conferences.

Philosophy of healthcare

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The philosophy of healthcareis the study of theethics, processes, andpeoplewhich constitute the maintenance of health for human beings. (Althoughveterinaryconcerns are worthy to note, the body of thought regarding their methodologies and practices is not addressed in this article.) For the most part, however, the philosophy of healthcare is best approached as an indelible component of human social structures. That is, thesocietalinstitution of healthcare can be seen as a necessaryphenomenonof humancivilizationwhereby an individual continually seeks to improve, mend, and alter the overall nature and quality of his or her life. This perennial concern is especially prominent in modern politicalliberalism, wherein health has been understood as the foundational good necessary for public life.^[1]

The philosophy of healthcare is primarily concerned with the following elemental questions:

• Who requires and/or deserves healthcare? Is healthcare a fundamental right of all people?

• What should be the basis for calculating the cost of treatments, hospital stays, drugs, etc.?

• How can healthcare best be administered to the greatest number of people?

• What are the necessary parameters for clinical trials and quality assurance?

• Who, if anybody, can decide when a patient is in need of "comfort measures" (euthanasia)?

However, the most important question of all is 'what is health?'. Unless this question is addressed any debate about healthcare will be vague and unbounded. For example, what exactly is a health care intervention? What differentiates healthcare from engineering or teaching, for example? Is health care about 'creating autonomy' or acting in people's best interests? Or is it always both? A 'philosophy' of anything requires baseline philosophical questions, as asked, for example, by philosopher David Seedhouse.

Ultimately, the purpose, objective, and meaning of healthcare philosophy is to consolidate the abundance of information regarding the ever-changing fields of biotechnology,medicine, andnursing. And seeing that healthcare typically ranks as one of the largest spending areas of governmental budgets, it becomes important to gain a greater understanding of healthcare as not only a social institution, but also as a political one. In addition, healthcare philosophy attempts to highlight the primary movers of healthcare systems; be itnurses,doctors,allied health professionals,hospitaladministrators,health insurancecompanies (HMOsandPPOs), thegovernment(MedicareandMedicaid), and lastly, thepatientsthemselves.

President Johnson signing the U.S. Medicare bill. Harry Truman and his wife, Bess, are on the far right. (1965)