Role of Clinical Pharmacologists in Antibiotic Stewardship Programs Held at PGI

By 121 News

Chandigarh 29^th March:- The annual national workshop on clinical pharmacology being held at PGI entered the second day of a week long program. The entire day was dedicated to raising awareness about problem of antibiotic misuse and measures of combating the menace. It was conducted as a symposium titled, "role of clinical pharmacologist in antimicrobial stewardship". This symposium was sponsored by National Academy of Medical Sciences. The event was kicked off by Dr Pallab Ray, PGI who introduced the delegates to the evolutionary concepts behind emergence of drug resistance. This was followed by enlightening talk by Dr. Nusrat Shafiq, Convener, Antimicrobial Stewardship Committee, PGI. She spoke about the role of the clinical pharmacologists in promoting rational use of antimicrobials. Dr. Navneet Sharma, Professor of medicine, PGI highlighted the role of clinicians and stressed upon the need of inter- departmental collaboration for the success of antibiotic stewardship program.  Professor Samir Malhotra from department of Pharmacology emphasised in his talk the need for conducting prospective audits and feedbacks based on them for improving management of infections. Dr Vikas Gautam, Additional Professor from microbiology department delivered talk on how to develop research projects that can aid in improving the antimicrobial use practices at hospitals. This was followed by lecture from Dr Arshiya Zaheer, head medical affairs, Pfizer who discussed her experience, perspective and role of pharmaceutical industry in combating antimicrobial resistance. 

Post lunch session was started by Dr. Ankur Gupta, from MSD who discussed how to optimise the dose regimes for antimicrobials. This was followed by session on using tools for evidence based medicine for judicious use of antimicrobials, wherein Dr Shyam Balaji, enlightened the delegates on how to integrate the principles of evidence based medicine to clinical practice by describing on how to solve clinician queries. The session was brought to end with exhaustive interactive hands on practical exercises taken up by the residents and faculty of the department. Practical exercises included the process of mining the correct literature to come to arrive at evidence based conclusion for using antimicrobials for optimally manage cases of infections .