For the important branch of medicine that dispenses radioactive materials for medicinal use, nuclear medicine and nuclear pharmacy deserve more mention and recognition. Apart from the physicians and the technicians who work in this domain, very few people know about nuclear pharmacy.

The American Medical Association (AMA) first recognized nuclear medicine in 1970 as a specialty field leading to the commencement of the concept of nuclear pharmacy. Radioactive materials played a critical role in nullifying some disorders in human beings, as a result of which hospitals and healthcare settings felt the need of hiring technicians who could handle the administrative procedures for nuclear medicine.

In the ’70s, nuclear pharmacy was relatively new in concept. With very few trained technicians around who could handle the radioactive process of treatment carefully, centralized nuclear pharmacies came into existence. These settings catered their services to a large group of hospitals. As time passed by, the bigger hospitals could invest in integrating nuclear medicine into their healthcare treatment processes, as smaller settings struggled with costs and lack of trained manpower in dealing with the radioactive materials.

Comparing the nuclear pharmacy with a traditional pharmacy is an interesting activity. Both these types of pharmacies actually work on the same model of the pharmacist receiving the prescription and dispensing the drug to the end user. A conventional pharmacist would probably dispense the drug in milligram weight units, while on the other hand, a nuclear pharmacist would dispense the drug in millicurie weight units.

Most pharmacies would directly administer or give the drug to the patient directly, while a nuclear pharmacist would deliver the drug to the hospital or the healthcare setting. The healthcare setting would then deliver the dose to the patient appropriately.

In essence, there are not a lot of dissimilarities between nuclear medicine and other conventional forms of medicine. Yet, nuclear pharmacies lack recognition in a big way.

http://nuclear.pharmacy.purdue.edu/what.php

http://nuclearpharmacy.uams.edu/