Unit Presentation
Mission and Philosophy
The intention is to develop the UPC as a pluridisciplinary university hospital unit along the lines of the French model. The UPC is founded on three essential pillars, which correspond to the three vital missions of clinical pharmacology in a 21st century university hospital center: patient care, education and research and development.
Patient Care
The UPC’s primary goal is to bring pharmacology back to the patient’s bedside and promote the concept of real-time pharmacology, i.e., to be able to return a dosage and its interpretation within a clinically acceptable timeframe and, thereby, offer immediate benefit to the patient. Although the UPC already provides efficient drug dosage and pharmacokinetic calculations, the Unit would like to broaden its clinical mission by improving the following aspects:
- Care protocols developed in close collaboration with clinicians (pharmacokinetic follow-up protocols for administered immunosuppressants).
- Consultation services offered to various clinicians (internal and external) for dosage adaptation of certain drugs.
- Accelerated genotyping. The extraordinary progress recently made in pharmacogenetic research and knowledge of drug metabolism now constitutes a remarkably useful tool for individual treatment adaptation.
- Functional pharmacological tests aimed at measuring the expected effects of the administered drugs ex vivo.
- Pharmacovigilance services to help detect undesirable side effects and better understand a number of adverse reactions and/or drug interactions.
Research and Development
Given its MULTIDISCIPLINARY structure, the UPC proposes the necessary tools and resources to promote the development of clinical pharmacology within the research axes by adequately addressing pharmacological concerns. Research projects conducted in partnership with the UPC fall into two main categories:
Projects initiated by researchers
Projects with pharmaceutical companies
The UPC ensures that children are well-protected, served and defended by these studies.
Education
The UPC is already active in pharmacology education in many ways:
- Supervision of master’s and doctoral students.
- Courses given at the Université de Montréal's Department of Pharmacology.
- Participation in the pediatric theme of the Université de Montréal's Journées de pharmacologie.
- Organization of pediatric clinical pharmacology events.
The UPC would like to broaden its teaching activities through the active training of young physicians (interns, residents, fellows) and paramedical personnel regarding the fundamentals of rational therapeutics, along with proper drug use, including recent literature data. In order to achieve this objective, the UPC proposes to:
- Organize structured educational activities and continued training for all health professionals at the institution (through cyclical seminars, for example).
- Develop a pediatric pharmacology course at the Université de Montréal.
- Adapt the existing Université de Montréal Clinical Pharmacology diploma, accredited by the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada, to pediatrics.