| Abstract:Many pharmacists at the National Center for Global Health and Medicine (NCGM) have a short duration of work experience, and there are no guidelines regarding education in palliative medicine in the pharmacy department. Our hospital does not have a palliative care ward and there are few opportunities to be exposed to palliative medicine. It has been observed that some pharmacists at our hospital are not skilled in palliative medicine owing to a lack of knowledge. To improve the quality of care provided by pharmacists involved in palliative medicine, we developed a set of competencies for pharmacists and administered a questionnaire survey among pharmacy staff regarding difficulties and weak points in relation to palliative medicine. A total of 51 competencies were developed, including ethics and attitude as performance items. Forty-one out of 53 pharmacy staff (77.4%) responded to the questionnaire. Items that were rated low by more than 50% of survey respondents included the list of drug and non-drug treatments for pain, fatigue, dyspnea, and other distressing patient symptoms. Fifty-six percent of respondents stated that they were not very familiar with these items. In this study, we developed competencies in palliative medicine for pharmacists at our hospital. Our survey revealed areas needing improvement. Additionally, pharmacy staff were aware of their difficulties with regard to palliative medicine.
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