This episode we travel around the world and hear from Paula Schaiquevich (Argentina) and Smita Pattanaik (India). These impressive women are well known IATDMCT members and for building successful TDM services from scratch. Paula and Smita share excellent advice about where to start, how to grow, some typical challenges and how to face these.

In this episode we hear about:

• expecting 'more pitfalls than happiness' when starting out in establishing a TDM service, and how to navigate this
• the importance of partnerships and how these steer the direction and success of services
• how to safeguard quality in the resource limited setting, and how participating in IATDMCT can help with this
• the skills required to go beyond the lab, the different professionals that may be involved in TDM and why this means that it can look very different in different parts of the world

Eight Drugs a Week is supported by the International Association of Therapeutic Drug Monitoring and Clinical Toxicology (IATDMCT). The personal views of the hosts and guests do not necessarily reflect the position of the Association.

To join IATDMCT, visit https://www.iatdmct.org/member-join

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About our guests:

Paula directs the preclinical and clinical pharmacology laboratory at the pediatric hospital Garrahan in Buenos Aires, Argentina. She is a principal investigator of CONICET, the national science and technology funding body. Paula was the chair of the pharmacometrics committee 2011-2015 and editor of the Compass, 2015-2019. In 2013, Paula was awarded the Victor Armstrong Young Investigator Award.

Smita is Professor of Clinical Pharmacology at the Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, Chandigarh, India. She directs the Therapeutic Drug Management program for renal and stem cell transplant patients at a tertiary care hospital in the North India of over 2000 beds. Smita leads the IATDMCT TDM in India seminar series which hosts regular webinars providing TDM education.