There is an increasing concern about the future of pharmacy education and the effect on the profession due to the sweeping changes in all spheres of human activity because of liberalization and globalization. Due to the technological innovations taking place, changes should be planned to enhance the quality of pharmacy education and the introduction of changes in the educational policies of the pharmacy institutions that provide knowledge and learning to new pharmacy graduates. Management, faculty, students and parents are disenchanted in the way the pharmacy education is being implemented today.
This article throws light on qualitative changes to be brought in, addresses certain issues of pharmacy education and training for our future pharmacists and focuses on some of the challenges being faced by the pharma industry and pharmacy educational institutions and suggests steps to be implemented for the successful training of future pharmacists.
The field of pharmaceutical sciences has made tremendous advances during the last century. Pharmacy is a profession that requires the synergy of knowledge that has already been developed by many other disciplines. The members of pharmacy profession work hand in glove with other profession related scientists to apply new and old scientific principles to produce pharmaceuticals and medicines to the public at affordable prices. Pharmacists strive to produce useful medicinal products subject to economic and social constraints.
Pharmacy is a unique profession as it is directly related to the nation's health care with main emphasis on the production of quality medicines to the public. From historic times, pharmacy evolved to encompass and drive the pharmaceutical growth of the modern technological society. In brief the value of profession of pharmacy is in developing and implementing value based health care services by producing quality medicines, which are key elements in improving the health care scenario of the nation.
Pharmacists are required to be skilled in the art of manufacture of drugs and should have ability to develop better therapeutic dosage formulations. According to Dr M. L. Shroff (Doyen of pharmacy profession in India) a pharmacist is a key figure in the health care setup of the nation. It is the knowledge of Pharmaceutical Sciences, which is useful in preparing quality medicines, which alleviate the suffering of diseased and the disabled patients. To make contributions of this kind, the pharmacists require persistent dedication, visualization and proper understanding of the subject.
Inherent difficulties
Today pharma industry and profession are experiencing rapid changes due to technological innovations and ideas sweeping across the globe. Hence these changes give better opportunities to the pharmacy profession and it is imperative to evolve a pharmacy academic programme that suits the basic thirst of the nation like providing medicines at affordable prices, community health care etc. Based on societal objectives, choice of specific thrust areas may be made such as clinical pharmacy, hospital pharmacy and Pharmacogenomics etc. It is immensely useful to identify those pharma technologies and advances that are going to evolve in the future. It is important to see the type of knowledge and background needed to develop the pharma expertise to achieve these technological advances useful to the society.
Defining pharmacy academic programme
A suitable pharmacy education setup should be developed which addresses the societal and nation's priorities and objectives. For developing an effective and ideal setup, the steps are:
*Identification of nation's priorities and policies pertaining to pharmaceutical sciences and pharmacy.
*Setting goals and priorities to address the goals.
*Defining the size of target student population.
*Focusing on the pharmaceutical thrust areas, which require special emphasis.
*Establishing and creating resources, financial and managerial, required for the above tasks.
Goals of pharmacy education
The fundamental aims of an ideal pharmacy education programme should be based on professional intellectual, social and personal perspectives. Professional perspectives: Professional expertise in pharmaceutical sciences, which serves as a source for subsequent professional career and to impart certain technical and experimental skills which are necessary for the profession.
Intellectual perspectives: Developing creative instinct and capacity to apply knowledge for problem solving and reasoning and urge to invent and innovate. Social perspectives: Development of communication skills, persuasion ability, teamwork, leadership qualities, societal brethren feeling and harmonious social interactions. Personal perspectives: Development of all-round and comprehensive personality compatible with all other above perspectives.
The above said goals can be fulfilled by having qualified pharmacy faculty, motivated students and modern infra structural facilities like good laboratories computerized and digital library, good lab equipment and instruments.
Forces for change
The needed inputs to bring out the required goals are:
*Proper classroom teaching and project based approach.
*Emphasis on the synthesis and development of student pharmacists to become increasingly skillful in obtaining solutions to open ended problems.
*Practical know-how in pharmaceutical applications.
*Life long learning and continued expansion of the knowledge base of pharmacist.
*Collaborative exercises with other interdisciplinary branches of sciences.
*Extensive application of IT based facilities like internet etc. the extensive integration of computational capabilities in pharmacy has permitted a number of educational enhancements.
Application of computer in pharmacy
Computers are nowadays used in pharmaceutical industries, Hospitals and in various departments for drug information, education, evaluation, analysis, medication history and for maintenance of financial records. They have become indispensable in the development of Clinical Pharmacy, Hospital Pharmacy and in Pharmaceutical Research. Computers are also useful for patient profile monitoring, medication monitoring, database management and material management. It is useful in providing information on drug interactions, drug information services and patient counseling.
Future vistas
The academic faculty has a tremendous role to play in shaping the profession of pharmacy. It has to join hands and integrate pharmacy with information technology,nanotechnology and proteomics to plant the seeds for a new kind of thinking, in terms of process changes. A very good example of integration can be seen in the popular field of molecular modelling and novel drug delivery systems. The future thrust areas for pharmacy disciplines are: Genomics, Biopharmaceutical sciences and Pharmaceutical nanotechnology.
It should be noted that increasingly more in-depth technical knowledge is required at all pharmacy academic levels and simultaneously cross disciplinary demands required of modern needs are growing exponentially. Another significant development is growing importance of molecular chemistry in all aspects of pharmacy.
Steps for enhanced image for the pharmacy profession
A pharmacy academic programme should necessarily have the following realistic inputs.
*Practical oriented pharmacy education and leadership go hand in hand and need a synergistic network of institutions and industry.
*Developmental projects are the heart of the pharmacy.
*Pharmacy studies should be infused with the application of know-how and feedback methodology.
Quality commitment
Committed faculty who have to maintain their expertise at the forefront of the profession through relevant research and learning. It is also the responsibility of the pharmacy colleges to assist the faculty in maintaining their professional competency.
Communication skills and oral presentations
The ability to communicate ideas, emotional stability, clarity of thought and speech, negotiation skills, logic and reasoning are important. Oral communication skills should be gradually developed. Selling the idea is an important stage in the development of a project. Creating practical applications from innovative ideas is a must for a successful new project development.
An entrepreneur pharmacist must be a leader, designer, synthesizer and a doer who understands theory as a guide to practice. Practical problem solving reinforces technical and practical knowledge and instills confidence and courage in the pharmacists. Today pharmacy curriculum prepares the pharmacists in an old paradigm. A brief review of points, which infuses new blood into the curriculum are presented in the article to satisfy the needs of a changing world. Transforming new ideas into practical applications is a process that the learner must be exposed to while developing successful pharmaceutical projects.
(The author is Principal, Veerayatan Institute of Pharmacy and Dean, Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, K. S. K. V. Kachchh University, Kutch)