Pharmaceutical Clinical Educators: A Resource for Advanced Practice Providers

One of the main challenges within clinical practice today involves attaining the knowledge necessary to treat patients safely and effectively. The explosion of scientific breakthroughs within the health-care setting has created a new challenge for today’s practitioners: staying informed. In turn, the pharmaceutical industry has been challenged with providing information that is accurate, meaningful, and compliant with US Food and Drug Administration guidelines. In this article, we review how the pharmaceutical industry has tried to fill this need through the role of the pharmaceutical clinical educator (PCE). We describe the PCE role and the different forms of education and support that can be provided to advanced practice providers (APPs). We also address the conflict of interest issues surrounding a collaborative relationship between APPs and pharmaceutical industry APPs.