As the pharma industry endures to progress, pharmacy education in the country will have to renovate it to help India Pharma leverage emerging opportunities and to nullify the challenges. Discussing the same, Dr B Suresh, president Pharmacy Council of India, New Delhi threw light on few strategies for industry focused curriculum in a webinar for field experts and educationists in Indore.
“Pharma professionals have scope in pharmacy production, manufacturing, quality assurance, quality control, drug regulatory affairs, packaging, research and development, hospitals, community service, government openings and an essential role in regulatory bodies,” Suresh said. He urged the educationists to ensure that students know about the scope and further specialisation accordingly.
“We are in process to implement artificial intelligence, machine learning and latest digital technology in the education system for advancement in clinical trial research, innovation of drug research, betterment in patient care, Revolution in R&D and better accuracy in epidemic prediction so institutes must be ready to adopt and further educate students on the same,” Suresh said. He quoted the importance of industrial training and said that it is superlative runway for undergraduates to grasp hands of experience provided before entering the competitive world, to get exposed to entrepreneurship and managerial skills, good knowledge of newer designed instruments and communicate so the institute should go for it maximum times as it can be done.
“The future pharmacist should have good knowledge on pharmaceutical and marketing fields as well,” Suresh said. He explained that other than analytical and strategic abilities, a pharmacist has to be capable of managing the entire marketing department of the organization.
“In a large organisation, as a leader pharmacist would also be required to hire, train and monitor other personnel in his or her department,” Suresh said.
He discussed diverse sections and divisions in a pharmaceutical company including clinical research, intellectual property, clinical research, etc.
“These sections have their individual necessities of proficiency and expertise,” Suresh said. In order to cater those needs, a pharmacist should be acquainted with necessary cognitive domains.
“Our council will be forming academic curriculum for pharmacy colleges and students,” Suresh said.
Other discussions were on working SOP of Pharmacy Council of India, its regulation and revision methodology of Academic curriculum for all courses of Pharmacy, whether PCI designed implemented syllabus fulfils the expectation of Industry, health care system and Pharma Industries, inclusion of digital learning, artificial intelligence, machine learning, deep learning, 3D technology and many more recent advancements in the digital world, upgrading cognitive domains of Pharmacy students by increasing duration of practice school, increasing subjects of Pharma Marketing Management, discussions of need of animal handling experiments in Bachelors of Pharmacy, inclusion of Pharmacy course syllabus in Government Public care examination like State Public Commission examination, support for R and D units establishment and Import substitution centres.
The session was convened by Dr Neelesh Malviya, Principal of Smriti College of Pharmaceutical Education, Indore. He outlined the concept of the Live Interaction being one way of future interactions.
The session was introduced by prof Dr Sapna Malviya. More than 18,000 people attended the online session citing more than +1000 live comments.
