Healthy rise in pharmacy student numbers

THE number of students enrolling for James Cook University’s pharmacy course has skyrocketed this year.

JCU Head of Pharmacy Associate Professor Michelle Bellingan said there had been a 60 per cent increase in first-year pharmacy students in 2017. Fifty first-year students have enrolled into the Bachelor of Pharmacy, bringing the total number of students in the degree up to 165.

Prof Bellingan said the enrolments would help out with pharmacist shortages across the state when students graduated in four years.

“We are delighted with this news, which will help to meet workforce needs in the North and elsewhere,” she said.

“We are even starting to see students from Southeast Queensland choosing to study here, when they would have usually studied closer to home.

“We are also attracting more students from places such as Mackay and Queensland’s central coast, where students traditionally went south to study pharmacy.”

Two students from the tiny Far North town of Dimbulah have travelled to study pharmacy at JCU and could take their knowledge back to the township of 1400 people when they finish their degrees.

“There is a shortage of pharmacists in North Queensland, especially in rural areas,” Prof Bellingan said. “It has traditionally been difficult to attract people to those areas.”

Students in the JCU Bachelor of Pharmacy do a minimum of 603 hours of placement during their degree.

A portion of those hours are spent in regional, rural and remote areas.

Prof Bellingan said she was confident those hours spent in regional areas would inspire students to take their practice there after graduation.

“Our students can work anywhere in the country, but many are keen to work in regional Queensland,” she said.