Job opportunities abound
AS part of the health care team, a pharmacist provides care for patients from the perspective of drug therapy.
The pharmacist is responsible for identifying, preventing and resolving patients’ drug therapy problems. Pharmacists are “experts on medicines” and play an active role in the quality use of medicine in society. Pharmacists have skills in chemistry of drugs, formulating medicines and therapeutic use of drugs to treat diseases.
A pharmacist’s job includes taking medication histories, identifying goals for drug therapy, providing recommendations and education to patients regarding self- medication, providing recommendations to other health care providers on drug therapy, working with patients to maximise benefits and minimise adverse effects of drug therapy, maintaining patient drug profiles, counselling patients on prescribed medication and monitoring drug interactions, adverse drug reactions and patients’ compliance with their drug treatment.
Other activities include the provision of information on drugs to patients and other health professionals, the preparation of suitable materials for use as medicines from natural and synthetic sources, the compounding of drugs and dispensing of suitable medication.
Pharmacy graduates have a wide range of career opportunities. The majority enter community pharmacy practice.
Hospital pharmacies also provide an interesting challenge for pharmacists, particularly in view of their expanding role within the clinical setting.
The pharmaceutical industry provides opportunities for pharmacists in the fields of sales and marketing, production, research and quality control.
The increased role of federal and provincial governments in public health has provided opportunities for pharmacists in analytical laboratories and administrative positions as consultants, government inspectors and health officers.
Bright prospects
Opportunities may also be available in universities as teachers and researchers.
At present, job prospects for pharmacists are bright since there is a shortage in both the public and private sectors.
To complement the need for pharmacists, the Management & Science University ( MSU), rated twice as Malaysia's top university by the Higher Education Ministry of Malaysia through a rating system on all universities in Malaysia, offers both bachelor degree and diploma in pharmacy through the School of Pharmacy.
The pharmacy programme is an MSU effort at achieving 1: 2,000 pharmacist/ patient ratios by 2020. According to statistics by the Health Ministry for 2013, the pharmacist per population in Malaysia was recorded at 1: 2,949.
MSU is committed to ensuring the best for its students. A comprehensive range of visiting professors conducting regular semester visits provides valuable input to students.
Also, various skill enhancement programmes to improve competitiveness are offered.
Other programmes offered under the School of Pharmacy are bachelor and diploma programmes in Traditional Chinese Medicine.
Meanwhile, a global exposure via MSU’s Global Mobility Programme ( GMP) will further strengthen graduates’ employability.
Through this unit, students have the options of transferring their final- year studies to foreign universities which are partners of MSU.
There are over 40 universities in Australia, the UK, the US, Japan, New Zealand, South Africa, Eastern Europe, India and Indonesia for selection.
For details on pharmacy courses or other programmes at MSU, call 03- 5521 6868, e- mail enquiry@ msu. edu. my, SMS MSUINFO ( space) name ( space) e- mail to 019- 341 9152/ 016- 356 8251/ 012- 249 6551 or visit www. msu. edu. my