Academic-Community Partnership for Medical Missions: Lessons Learned and Practical Guidance for Global Health Service-Learning Experiences.

To facilitate an academic-community partnership for sustainable medical mis-sions, a 12-step process was created for an interprofessional, global health educational, and service-learning experience for students and faculty in a school of pharmacy and health professions. Lessons learned and practical guidance are provided to implement similar global health opportunities.

Medications and breast-feeding: Current concepts.

OBJECTIVES: To describe the various factors that come into play when a breast-feeding mother is taking medications, including use of prescription drugs, over-the-counter medications, recreational drugs, galactogogues, and herbal remedies and to provide a framework used for counseling breast-feeding women. SETTING: Community and hospital pharmacy and health care settings. PRACTICE DESCRIPTION: Consultative services provided to breast-feeding mothers who had been prescribed or were using medications. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Use of pharmacokinetic factors, maternal and child factors, a list of questions to ask breast-feeding mothers, and a stepwise approach to counsel breast-feeding mothers on the compatibility of using medications while breast-feeding. RESULTS: By positive intervention of pharmacists and health care providers, up to 1 million breast-feeding mothers, who must use medications, can continue to breast-feed while taking medications. CONCLUSION: Objectively weighing the benefits of drugs and breast-feeding versus the risks of drugs and not breast-feeding, in most cases, allows for pharmacists to give current and practical advice to mothers and other health professionals who counsel mothers.