Pharmacy council of India (PCI) has recently announced that it is going to introduce New Education Regulation (ER) 2011 by upgrading the syllabus of D.Pharmacy course. By this announcement it is confirmed that pharmacy profession in India is not going to be upgraded for another 10 years, but only the syllabus of diploma course is. Do the PCI really believe by this upgradation the social status, respectability among the doctors, service to the general public and the global image of pharmacy profession of India will jump up? If so, it seems PCI is in a utopian world, shutting the eyes to the realities of our society. Let us list these realities.
Reality 1: As of now, lots of D.Pharm colleges are either closed or about to be closed for want of students. Dec 2011 convention of APTI (Association of Pharmaceutical Teachers of India) also pointed out this situation and it is confirmed by demands of private pharmacy college managements to downgrade the eligibility for admission to 10th standard instead of +2. By improving the D.Pharm syllabus will this scenario change at once? Can you guarantee full admissions? The reality is unemployment among the D.Pharm holders prevents admissions to these colleges, but the reason put forward by PCI says huge demand for D.Pharm not only in trade but also in Industry!
Reality 2: Doctors in hospitals are not respecting the D.Pharm holders. They even consider it inferior to talk to them about drugs or its pharmacology. If these D.Pharm pharmacists find and point out any incompatibility or error in their prescriptions, they are not ready to accept it and sometimes even scold these bloody sub-ordinates! This is told by Government hospital pharmacists themselves to this author and other professors when we were resource persons for continuous education programme conducted for them by state pharmacy council. Recently a retired and reputed professor of pharmacy told me that when requested for tie up for Pharm. D course, a chief doctor of a big hospital in Tamil Nadu put forward the first condition that the ‘pharmacists should not criticize the prescriptions!’ This situation will change only when graduate and post graduates took over the hospital pharmacies, not by improving D. Pharm syllabus. Actually Govt. pharmacists who are facing this humiliation often, want to upgrade their qualification and demanding it. Why betray them? Is it (the proposal by PCI) the innovation and strategy to win? Are we going in the right direction?
Reality 3: General public are not able to identify and clarify their doubts with the community pharmacists. He is invisible most of the time. Even if he is available how to differentiate him from other salesmen in the shop is a problem. PCI never bothered to remedy the situation as though it is not concerned with them. Is it ready to make wearing white clinical apron with name plate by pharmacists mandatory in all retail community pharmacies? When it is going to prevent semi literate salesmen from attending prescriptions? Then how the image of pharmacists among public will improve? What strategy the PCI has to face this reality?
Reality 4: As PCI itself is not ready to upgrade the profession, how can we expect reforms by Medical Council of India? MCI is yet to make it mandatory to have Department of Pharmacy services with graduate and post graduate in pharmacy in teaching (medical college) hospitals, even after the request by PCI was made five or six years back. As a result we do not have pharmacy procedure manual or Antibiotics committee or Pharmacy and Therapeutic committee or Drug information Center or Clinical Pharmacy services or manufacturing units in any Indian hospital. If you yourself continue to uphold the D. Pharm, in which century we will have these services in our Indian hospitals? Already we are 40 to 50 years behind the developed countries in Hospital and Clinical Pharmacy services. Why put spoke on the forward moving wheels of science?
Reality 5: Before Independence, in order to have quick man power to staff the hospitals and other sectors short-term licentiate courses were started even in medical and legal fields. But they were stopped by 1950’s. But we still continue it even after 60 long years. Why we are not able to follow our medical professionals in this aspect? Of course diploma courses are continuing in nursing and engineering field, but their job involves manual and field work. So there may be some justification in it. But why we should continue diploma course when a pharmacist’s work is almost 100 per cent intellectual? Is it not logic to upgrade such a profession to graduate and post graduate level? When our PCI will wake up to this fact?
Reality 6: Financial condition and social status of pharmacists will improve only when there is adequate income to them. His salary has to increase significantly. Government appointed pay commissions are normally fixing salaries or grade to government employees, as per the number of years of education they had, not by the syllabus they studied. As long as you keep D. Pharm as the qualification for pharmacists, you cannot expect his status to improve in our society and in Govt. service. Upgrade qualification to upgrade status! Is it not one of the sacred duties of PCI?
Reality 7: Government of India has announced its intention to allow Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in retail sector. How our retail pharmacies are going to face the giant foreign chain of pharmacies? Is it not point out the compulsion of up gradation of profession? Unless and otherwise, the retail pharmacies improve themselves with services of graduate pharmacists they will vanish sooner or later. If they are adamant and aggressive to have Diploma holders, allow it. We have sufficient unemployed D. Pharm holders. But motivate them to upgrade by introducing a system of grading of retail shops like Grade A, B, C etc. depends on the services they provide. Market forces will compel them to upgrade for survival as per evolution theory. Thus the reality demands upgradation, not stagnation. Foresee the future; don’t get carried away by backward elements in the profession. By extending D.Pharm we are not actually serving the trade but encouraging them to stagnate and rot.
Hence push for E.R 2001, already proposed and sent to central government, which envisages B.Pharm as minimum qualification to practice the profession of pharmacy, framed by the visionaries of pharmacy profession.
What the PCI now proposed is neither an innovation nor a winning strategy but only a defeating tragedy, which is going to spoil the dreams of budding pharmacists. It is not for integrating with pharmacy global scenario but isolating India to be a backward country in the decades to come. Debate real innovation, strategy and globalization of pharmacy education, you will only come to above conclusions.
(Ex. President, Indian Pharmacy Graduates Association, Madurai, TN)