Sharing Experience and Knowledge Gained from Research

"As health professionals we have important obligations to educate our patients, our students, and our colleagues in professional practice. We can achieve this using our experience, new information gained from research, and our commitment to professional growth to create educational programs in self-care that will benefit our patients and consumers."

Mike Winter, PharmD, Professor of Clinical Pharmacy, Vice Chair for Academic Affairs, Department of Clinical Pharmacy, UCSF School of Pharmacy

The Center's Education Program encompasses: special forums and meetings on self-care; support of Continuing Education for health professionals; special project activities for outside organizations relating to consumer educational materials. [Center Programs]

Special Forums and Meetings on Self Care provide opportunities for academic and business partners to share and explore the frontier boundaries of access, quality, choice, and cost as they impact self-care in the changing health care environments. The Center has sponsored special sessions on consumer drug product development, and pharmacy practice, among other specific areas.

Continuing Education for Health Professionals (CE) is an important approach to expanding the concepts of consumer-centered care into the health professional community. Among recent CE programs supported by the Center and the School, with outside sponsorship, is the Winter 2004 CE on The Pharmacist & Depression - Making a Difference in Your Practice Setting.

Community Service Projects, such as the Ask Your Pharmacist programs contracted by pharmacy companies and healthcare providers, serve not only as important outreach to our local and state communities but also help our students and residents apply their pharmaceutical knowledge in hospital and community settings.
• Researchon our drug information issues and practices serves to promote continuous quality improvement in our drug information services.

Special projects for outside organizations provide the opportunity to apply faculty experience and knowledge about consumer-oriented health information materials, including research approaches to creating consumer-friendly labeling and health information.

To engage further discussions on creating possible educational projects with the Center, please contact:

R. William Soller, PhD
Executive Director
Center for Consumer Self Care
UCSF School of Pharmacy
3333 California Street
San Francisco, CA 94163-0613
TEL (415) 502-7633
FAX (415) 502-0792
sollerrw@pharmacy.ucsf.edu