Pharmaceutical Review (www.pharmarev.com). Dr. Khalid Ahmad Shiekh faculty member of Department of Pharmaceutics, The School of Pharmacy, University of London 29-39, Brunswick Square, WC1 N1AX, London and pharmacist graduated from University College of Pharmacy, University of the Punjab, Lahore, Pakistan has written an open letter regarding the Pharm D tenure as under;
Dear Pharmacists Colleagues,
Thanks for involving/updating us in this critical development in the field of pharmacy in Pakistan. I am normally bit long-winded but will try to be succinct here. Irrespective of the history of the revised name (Pharm D) for pharmacy course in Pakistan, I think the HEC committee should be commended for this new initiative of residency (we call it pre-registration training here in the UK). Rest of the things like total time for Pharm D including residency (the main topic of this discussion) should be discussed further and I believe participation of PPA in this committee is a must, which from the look of the members of the committee, is lacking (I may be wrong).
Dr. Tahir Aziz Mughal (Chief Pharmacist; SKMCH, Lahore, Pakistan) has compared various pharmacy courses worldwide in detail to educate us and I think professional bodies stance after this information is worth pondering. I know all of you are well aware of the UK pharmacy system and in no way I am trying to represent the UK pharmacy. Just want to share something what we academics are going through here. It will be worthwhile to know from my Malaysian pharmacists friends on the Malaysian pharmacy education system and its impact on the pharmacy workforce.
We, here in the UK (GPhc and all the schools of pharmacy), are also working on merging the pre-registration training (1 year) with the MPharm curriculum to make it 5-year course instead of existing 4-year MPharm plus 1 year pre-reg training but foresee many obstacles . However, we want to make sure that in reality the total time for a student required to be a registered pharmacist still remains the same (5 years). The sole reason for this initiative is active participation of hospitals/community pharmacies and the industry in the collaborative training of the new generation. At the moment each hospital has its own training rotations which differ significantly amongst hospitals. Therefore, we aim to standardise training of pharmacists across UK.
I think the way forward should be dialogue with the HEC committee rather than total disapproval. If I were to represent PPA on this issue then I would commend their latest initiative and ask them to have a look again at the total duration.
Before I leave just want to share “NOT A VERY GOOD NEWS” with you all about the non-European pharmacists. The UK border agency is planning (actually have accepted) the parliament’s select committee’s suggestion of including Pharmacy as one of the 28 professions which will not be included in the future immigration work permit scheme. This will effectively (unfortunately) exclude all the pharmacists coming outside of the Europe to work as pharmacists in the UK.
Regards.
Dr. Khalid Ahmad Shiekh;
| Department of Pharmaceutics, The School of Pharmacy, University of London 29-39, Brunswick Square, WC1 N1AX, London |
| E mail: khalid.sheikh@pharmacy.ac.uk |
| Tel.: +44 (020) 7753 5990 |