Free Pharmacy Classes

Online Courses for Pharmacists on the Internet

Pharmacy classes are no different than so many of the other free online college courses I've discussed on this site: you can find distance learning pharmacological courses free of charge that give you insight into the field you want to study. Pharmacy classes teach you a fundamental understanding of chemistry, anatomy, and human biology. You'll need these skills to know which drugs and medicines to hand to the patient and customers--and knowing what amount to provide.

But pharmacists may want to know more than just the dry facts. You may want to have an expanded understanding of public health issues and the latest trends in the pharmaceutical industry. Certainly, you'll want to know the values of the medical profession, the ethical policies at the foundation of the health industry, and the legal issues which might arise in the course of dispensing all those painkillers, antihistamines, miracle drugs, and medical prescriptions. Below are some of the common distance learning courses a pharmacy student is going to want to study.

Pharmaceuticals Management for Under-Served Populations from Johns Hopkins University offers analysis of real world drug management problems and develops solutions for at least some of these issues. Among the topics you'll cover are drug safety, procurement, and distribution, the international pharmaceutical trade and the WTO, Essential Medicines, the National Drug Policy, and even the property rights of the pharmaceutical industry.

Principles of Drug Development discusses the preclinical and clinical development of new drugs by pharmaceutical firms. You'll studies the development of therapeutic drugs from the laboratory to the marketplace, with full analysis of the four major factors that go into the production of every new drug on the market: the economic risk, economic reward, medical risk, and medical reward.

Antibiotics, Toxins and Protein Engineering

Toxicology and Public Health is also titled "Toxins in the Environment" and it explores the subject of human disease, exposure to chemical agents, and government regulations of chemical agents. This undergraduate course may not be for every pharmacy student, but since it discusses the many regulations a pharmacist deals with on a daily basis, those who want to know why laws exist and what chemicals they sell might do to the human body in the wrong or harmful amounts, it's included on this list of free online college pharmacy courses.

Principle of Pharmacology is a health sciences and technology course with 13 different lecturers. The purpose of the class is to study pharmacologic agents, but it is not a review of pharmacopoeia. Instead, you'll study the basic concepts behind physiology, biophysics, and biochemistry. You'll also study the mechanisms of metabolism, biodistribution, and drug action. In all, you should become familiar with dose-response relations, drug interaction, substance abuse, drug metabolism, pharmacokinetics, drug delivery systems, and drug action. Understand this is a graduate level course, though.