I am going to apply for PhD in area of pharmacoeconomics in the US. Thank you for the help from both moderator and other potential graduate students.
When I decided to enter a pharmacy school in (XXX), I chose Pharm.D. program, the unprecedented program during that juncture, based on the reason that I wanted to become a patient-oriented pharmacist.
Graduated with a passion for introducing new roles of clinical pharmacist to societies, I became a clinical pharmacist at (XXX) Hospital, a private hospital. Since, working in a multidisciplinary team, the acceptance of clinical pharmacists in the team and patients has gradually increased. Drug-related problems have been used as a tool to present the activities of clinical pharmacists. However, in the financial perspective, clinical pharmacist still have small impact toward overall picture of the hospital because the activities cannot be assessed into the quantitative amount. I think that if I can apply the cost-effectiveness analysis, the result of pharmacy interventions should have been clearer to the hospital's management view and the roles of clinical pharmacists would have been expanded to more patients. Moreover, there have been situations that physicians switched patients' medicines to new drugs that have similar efficacy in a favor of sale representatives, but with no evidence-base of cost-effectiveness. In cases like this, patients waste money on switching drugs merely on physicians' preferences. Patients should have right to use the medicine that is not only best for their health but also best for their financials. I believe that study in pharmacoeconomics can help provide directions to hospitals and health care system so that patients and the society can gain benefit by being healthier in a more cost-effective way.
In the fourth year of pharmacy student, I volunteered to be the president of Mahidol camp, activities to promote health in rural area by four faculties-- medicine, nurse, pharmacy, and dentist. I realized that health care system in countryside still needs to be improved. I think that if there are more researches related to pharmacoeconomics, especially cost-effectiveness analysis, the government can save more money by using the efficiency drugs or treatments at a lower cost. The incremental money benefited from pharmacoeconomics studies has significant meaning to developing countries. This money can be used to contribute in many helpful ways for developing countries such as improving basic health requirements to residencies in rural areas.
