The Pharmacy Council of India (PCI) has mooted a new part time course ‘B Pharm (Pharmacy Practice)’ which is of three years duration. Selected pharmacy colleges across the country would offer the course.

The part time course would suit timings of working professionals like community pharmacists and health care pharmacists. The formalities to commence the course for this academic year are underway, said D A Gundu Rao, president, Karnataka State Pharmacy Council, senate member, Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences (RGHUS), and member, PCI.

B Pharm (Pharmacy Practice) is designed on par with global requirements. “India also needs to restructure the D Pharm course to address the needs of consumer-patient needs. With the required  and relevant updation of the syllabus, the pharmacist at the counter would automatically be promoted from a mere drug dispenser to a patient advisor giving him a direction on medication and a first point of contact before a doctor could be accessed. This is where B Pharm (Pharmacy Practice) would provide the expertise. However D Pharm would continue but with a revised syllabus,” said Rao.

Although PCI had proposed B. Pharm as minimum qualification for pharmacist registration, the pharmacy trade opposed it stating that degree holders opting to vend medicines would be less than one percent and would aggravate the shortage of pharmacists at retail outlets.

In the new syllabus for D Pharm, non-essential topics need to be replaced because the business of selling medication off the counter has transformed. The consumer-patient is now more globalised and demanding. There is  need to appoint a  qualified pharmacist to man counters. It would enhance the image of the pharmacist and solve the acute shortage of qualified personnel at the chemist outlets, he added.

Currently, the challenges facing the pharmacy profession seem never-ending. “We are at the crossroads and there is a pertinent need for restructuring the D Pharm course with a specialization after the first year level after the student gets through grounding in basic subjects. Therefore there needs to add additional subjects like  Social Pharmacy, Pharmacoeconomics, Patient Counselling & Human Resource  management, Jurisprudence, Drug Store Management, Cold Chain systems and  Novel Drug Delivery Systems. This is where focus on subjects like community pharmacy will come to the fore,” said the Karnataka State Pharmacy Council chief.

From a pharmacist's perspective, the number of shops with qualified personnel is skewed. There is increased workload, longer working hours and need more salaries. Pharmacists are seen to job hop and this has also led to paucity of qualified personnel at the chemist counters.

There is also a major discrimination in salary between doctors and pharmacists. In the US, the pharmacist is positioned as a critical component in the healthcare space. But in India it is the reverse where any person can obtain a license to sell medicines by employing a registered pharmacist even at hospital pharmacies. Although there is considerable transformations to ensure recognition of the pharmacist, there is need to revise the syllabus to bring the D Pharm holder within the ambit of Practising Pharmaceutical Care, said Rao.