The Pharmaceutical Journal Vol 267 No 7165 p347-351
15 September 2001

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Pharmacy education (2 letters)

Two types of pharmacist?

From Mr I. W. Marshall, FRPharmS

I was interested in the article “Crisis looming for pharmacy courses” (PJ, 25 August, p251). Some years ago I took a poke at the bums-on-seats philosophy of funding university education (Pharmacy in Practice, November 1998, p423) and its effect on lowering educational standards with particular reference to pharmacy. I also mentioned in another article (Pharmacy in Practice, December 1999, p379) the growing recognition that the master’s degree (at that time generally still a second degree) was becoming the “basic” pharmacist qualification, partly because of the devaluation of the earlier baccalaureate course by lowering the entry standards, and partly from new demands to meet the changing clinical role of pharmacists.

It strikes me that we could be heading for two types of pharmacist. Some would argue that that has always been the case. For example, the misunderstood role of hospital pharmacists by community practitioners and vice versa has firmly planted in some minds that there is a distinct difference in pharmacists in practice. So there may be.

I have mused over the prospects of the entries in the pharmaceutical register as we currently know it reducing by some 20,000 over the next 20 years with two new registers being the outcome — the “clinicist” register, for those who have pursued MPharm and practice-based PharmD courses, with or without additional “management” qualifications, and the “prescriptionist” register.

I have seen a rise in both the educational qualifications of pharmacy technicians (especially in the hospital service) and their professional aspirations (and salaries). There could be a time when the prescriptionist pharmacist and the graduate technician conceivably become one and the same, with or without additional management or business qualifications — the second register.

It almost seems that academic institutions are gearing up for this scenario with several offering pseudo-pharmacy courses whose graduates have some knowledge of pharmacy but cannot, at present, register as pharmacists. Some work as technicians. On top of this, most academic institutions offering secondary education seem to aspire to award “degrees”. After all, there’s money in it. The inventiveness of those universities doing a “proper” pharmacy degree is clearly being exercised so they can “pay their way” in the current educational funding system. A few are using the simple expedient of lowering their entry standards to fill the places. The more inventive institutions are creating what I have already described as pseudo-pharmacy courses when they discover they have surplus staff and facilities in their departments of pharmacy. Perhaps a few should close.

I noted the brief item on the following page of the PJ (p252), “From technician to pharmacist”. I know several “technicians” who have taken this route. Taking a step backwards, perhaps the Society should examine roles and start by creating a technician register before a competitive organisation is formed, and move on from there.

Ian W. Marshall
Leeds

Unusual routes into profession

From Mrs B. M. Stephens, MRPharmS

I would like to inform readers that an “unusual non-A-level route” of entrance is not necessarily prohibitive to successful completion of a pharmacy degree.

I worked as a hospital pharmacy technician for four years and gained distinctions in the BTEC examinations. Fortunately Brighton Polytechnic (as it was at the time) had enlightened admissions criteria, and my experience was considered alongside my qualifications.

I did not find the course more academically taxing than my “A”-level educated contemporaries and obtained an upper second class honours degree, leading to a satisfying career in community pharmacy and GP advisory work.

If universities wish to recruit motivated individuals with a genuine interest in pharmacy and an understanding of the reality of practice, they could do worse than dissuade pharmacy technicians from applying. Selecting candidates on “A”-level results alone could exclude potentially valuable pharmacists from the profession at a time we need them the most.

Beverley Stephens
Emsworth,
Hampshire

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