Are you dreaming of becoming a pharmacist someday?
Pharmacists offer drugs prescribed by health professionals and explain how to take medicines properly. They’re the one who answer queries about prescriptions and OTC medications, help patients treat conditions, and keep track of what drugs people are taking. They also educate doctors and other clinical professionals on medication placement, dosage and interactions.
Many pharmacy schools need some previous university study, including a good history in research. Some of their programs are structured to provide students with rigorous science education. They could benefit from small courses, personalized experiences with their teachers, laboratory experience and outstanding opportunities.
In Canada, pharmacist education is based on the basis of large, research-intensive, publicly supported universities and a national health care system that balances government and private support for prescription drugs. The development of pharmacy education and practice in Canada has laid the groundwork for a number of evolving trends related to expanding roles for pharmacists, improved inter-professional collaboration for patient-centered care, and the advent of pharmacy technicians as a soon-to-be-regulated professional community in parts of the world.
Since the early 1980s, successive research and reviews have demonstrated that pharmacists are a “underutilized profession” and that pharmacists are an “untapped resource” in health care. In an environment of enhanced awareness of patient safety, greater reliance on fair use of scarce health services, and a greater desire for responsibility for performance, pharmacy procedures in Canada continue to change from product focus to patient focus.
The Canadian pharmaceutical education system has experienced substantial evolution over the last decade and will continue to develop to accommodate and foresee the evolving roles and responsibilities of pharmacists in the health care system.
The Canadian health professional education system is characterized by four main elements:
(a) a strong, research-intensive public university system with no private, stand-alone pharmacy schools;
(b) a government-funded universal health care system of non-private hospitals and a comparatively small private health care system;
(c) a regulatory system for medical professionals based on the ‘college’ system, eerily similar to the UK;
(d) Independent but strongly collaborative educational, regulatory and advocacy communities.
In order to understand why the Canadian pharmaceutical education system operates as it does today, it is important to consider the role of these key elements in shaping education policies and practices.
Education System
There is a legally defined distinction of powers between the federal and the provincial governments in Canada. The provinces are responsible for the management of health care and post-secondary education, while the federal government is responsible for implementing guidelines for health care so in many cases, providing financial assistance. Mostly as an effect, there is a patchwork of various laws and educational and licensing requirements; in certain situations, it could be simpler and faster for a pharmacist trained in British Columbia to be licensed in Washington State than for that pharmacist to be licensed in the Quebec province.
Currently, there are Ten certified pharmacy schools in Canada, eight offer degree programs in English and Two schools offer programs in French in Quebec.
Most pharmacy schools are situated within broad, research-intensive universities that live in major centers and are all directly associated with medical and other health care professional programs within the university system.
Getting Licensed
Every state mandate that pharmacists are professionals and licenses. These are usually transferable from state to state, but often require extra tests. Verify with the current state pharmacy board to hear more about the guidelines. The steps you take to acquire your license varies based on whether or not you attended a pharmacy school in Canada.
