Background
Traditionally, there has been a sharp distinction between development, research and teaching in the field of Danish pharmacy practice. Organisational development typically takes place in the individual pharmacy, research is carried out by pharmacy practice researchers and pharmacy students learn at the School of Pharmacy, disconnected from daily pharmacy practice. Research and teaching constitute rather distinct areas, particularly in pharmaceutical care, which is unfortunate for the students, the research and especially the patients that are to benefit from the pharmaceutical care approach.

This paper presents first part of an ongoing project that attempts to reconcile the above distinctions. The overall purpose of the project is to contribute to the quality development of pharmacy practice and research in the pharmaceutical care area, where the user perspective is better integrated. The project tries to live up to the following objectives:

1. For pharmacies: To describe and improve the pharmacies' advice to patients.
2. For pharmacy students: To become involved in the development of pharmaceutical care in the pharmacy, to gain insight into the patient's perspectives on illness and drugs and to gain experience in doing research.
3. For researchers: To implement and evaluate participatory action research as a way of carrying out intervention studies.

Method
The project is carried out as a continuous/ongoing participatory action research project. Participatory action research involves practitioners in the entire research process. The project is steered by a working group consisting of pharmacy practice researchers, community pharmacists, hospital pharmacists and pharmacy students. In 1998, 44 internship pharmacies and 68 pharmacy students participated in the first part of the empirical part of the project. The pharmacy students carried out qualitative interviews with 123 angina pectoris patients on their knowledge, perception, experiences, problems and activities in relation to health, illness and drugs. In addition, the students collected data from a survey among pharmacy staff on their knowledge about and advice to patients (568 responses). Furthermore, the activities of the students, the pharmacies and the researchers were evaluated.

Results and conclusion
The paper discusses the extent to which the project contributed to the quality development of pharmaceutical care. It describes student learning as well as the pharmacies' activities following the project; it touches upon the similarities and differences between the perspectives of patients and pharmacy staff. Finally, the paper discusses how to use a participatory action approach to implement and develop new pharmacy practice activities. We attempt to answer the question concerning the design of the project: Can you really kill three birds with one stone?