[india-drug] Pharmacist and Doctor: Important Link (13)

["surulivel rajan mallayasamy" <msvrajan@rediffmail.com>]

Pharmacist and Doctor: Important Link (13)
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Dear All,
Its fine this topic is being discussed with interest. Being one of the students of earlier batches of pharmacy practice graduates, I would like to share few things with our group members.

Pharmacy practice course was started with ideal intentions and we as students were happy to get into clinical practice. Almost all the doctors with whom we worked were really co operative and appreciative of our efforts and work. But Just after completion of graduation we could not get ourselves placed in a hospital as a clinical pharmacist but we got teaching position. After our batch, almost 95% of our juniors have joined in industries and that trend is continuing. If you ask any pharmacy practice graduate his dream will be an industry oriented career.

As a practicing pharmacist, I have observed few things which I would like to share.
Since there is no regulation for pharmacist appointment in hospitals, many managements are reluctant to take even a pharmacy graduate and they prefer a diploma candidate rather.  If regulatory authority can work on this issue and make pharmacy graduates a compulsory in hospitals, lot of changes can be expected and graduates can be slowly trained and inducted into clinical services. Appointing a postgraduate directly without proven benefit in our hospital set up may be a distant dream. It is heartening to note that respected Dr. Tiwari's students (NIPER) have joined as a clinical pharmacist.

Without going through a growth curve we can not reach the summit. My humble request to all the members to take up the issue of having pharmacy graduates in every hospital in India. Then this has to be extended to community pharmacies and in future things may change where clinical pharmacists will be appointed in all clinical set ups.

With dreams of future
M.Surulivel Rajan,
Lecturer,
Department of Pharmacy Practice,
Manipal College of Pharmaceutical Sciences,
Manipal, Karnataka