Robert Shrewsbury, PhD, has recently published the third and newest edition of his textbook on compounding, Applied Pharmaceutics and Contemporary Compounding.
Shrewsbury is an associate professor in the Division of Practice Advancement and Clinical Education at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
“One of the Most Interesting Subjects”
The third edition is written for pharmacy students and practitioners in pharmacy compounding.
Compounding is the pharmacy specialty of making dosage forms to meet individual patient needs. It provides an alternative for patients when medications are not available in the marketplace.
“Many times the pharmacist will start with raw ingredients to prepare the dosage form, but other times the preparation is a combination of a commercially available product with additional raw ingredients added to create a new dosage form,” Shrewsbury says.
Of the 4.5 billion prescriptions filled each year, approximately 10 percent are customized through compounding, Shrewsbury says.
“Compounding is one of the most interesting subjects in pharmacy because it truly is individualized medicine that involves both pharmaceutical knowledge and clinical skill,” he says.
The Author
Shrewsbury is currently working on the sixth edition of the Pharmacy Technician, a national certification course for the US and Canada for pharmacy technicians.
In addition to his textbooks, has authored more than 120 book chapters, numerous online education courses, and national certification examination study guides. His current focus is on the laboratory as a classroom and the influence of Internet-based instruction on learning.
Shrewsbury is a member of the United States Pharmacopeia Expert Committee on Compounding, which is responsible for developing federal standards that define pharmacy compounding practice in the United States.
He also built and maintains a national and international website for compounding; more than 40 percent of the website users are from international sites.
He joined the School in 1980 and was given the School’s Overall Instructor of the Year Award in 2014.
Shrewsbury received his BS in pharmacy from the University of Oklahoma in 1972 and his PhD from the University of Kentucky in 1977.
By Aren Besson