Many people think that if you want to save lives and treat illnesses, you have to study medicine. Well, those people are wrong, because studying pharmacy is also a fantastic option!
A Pharmacy degree is one of the most exciting and rewarding study options for university students. There are so many amazing ways that it could help you build a stellar career and change your life for the better.
So strap in, and let us tell you six reasons why a Bachelor’s degree in Pharmacy could be the perfect programme for you.
You’ll Help Save Lives and Make People Healthier
If you’re interested in a healthcare career, we bet that you want to help people. Getting a pharmacy degree gives you the chance to do just that by being a medication specialist.
Basically, pharmacists evaluate the factors that determine whether someone can take a type of medicine, like diet and lifestyle.
You will be on the frontlines of disease prevention and treatment every day. You’ll be saving lives by providing the expertise that helps people use medicine in the right way for their optimum health outcome. In addition, pharmacists carry out screening tests e.g. blood pressure, blood cholesterol as part of primary healthcare.
Otherwise, you could be giving the advice that allows people to take the right medication and make their day better. In short, you’ll be one of our healthcare heroes.
Pharmacists also make a huge impact on the healthcare system. According to the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy, having a pharmacist on hospital rounds as a full member of the patient care team has been shown to improve patients’ safety. They prevent medication errors, reduce adverse drug reactions, and reduce healthcare costs.
Exciting Career Options
Studying pharmacy doesn’t just mean you’ll be only dispensing medicine behind a counter, you know. There are three main tenets of pharmacy—community, hospital/clinical and industrial pharmacy.
Community pharmacy can include careers in chain and independent pharmacies while clinical pharmacy could see you working in clinics or hospitals.
Community pharmacists perform differential diagnosis and provide treatment using controlled medicines for responding to symptoms, medicine management of disease conditions already diagnosed and oral contraception. They also provide health monitoring services and health promotion services such as weight management, family planning, smoking cessation services etc.
Many community pharmacists also provide services such as comprehensive medication reviews, medication therapy management and medication reconciliation to their clients.
Meanwhile, industrial pharmacy is all about creating medicines from scratch. That’s right, you can actually learn to create different types of medications in university.
At QIU, you will have lots of chances to produce and prepare medicines as we have our own fully functioning pharmaceutical production pilot plant, sterile lab and cytotoxic drug reconstitution lab.
There are many other options as well— pharmaceutical companies, research, lab analysis, toxicology and academia to name a few. Remember: your career path doesn’t need to be set in stone now. A pharmacy degree opens many exciting opportunities, and you can find the one you love the most.
Keep in mind that a 1-year Pre-registration Training (housemanship) is required following the Bachelor of Pharmacy degree to become a Registered Pharmacist.
Help People Directly and Make Connections
If you enjoy interacting with people and helping them directly, a community or clinical pharmacist is the ideal career choice.
You will also be a highly-respected, trustworthy member of your community. Everyone loves the person who helps them get healthier!
Studying Pharmacy is Fun!
A big part of university life is studying. And that can get a little boring at times.
But if you sign up for a QIU degree, you’ll get the chance to learn by doing—under the guidance and supervision of your lecturers. It’s the most effective and exciting way to learn, and you’ll be doing it from your first semester. Experiential learning is the major focus of the QIU Pharmacy program.
We emphasise active, continuous learning and soft skills training. Each theoretical lesson will be immediately followed by practicals, tutorials, process-driven problem-based learning, skill labs, visitations, presentations, and assignments. You’ll learn from our book, natural product, and pharmaceutical dosage form libraries, anatomy dissection hall, pathology specimens, specialised labs and much more,
QIU Pharmacy students perform monthly pharmaceutical care sessions at local senior citizen homes. There, they learn communication and different medication classes of medicines. They also get to monitor the appropriateness of treatment, achievement of outcomes, side effects, medicine interactions, patients’ adherence and treatment suitability.
The university also has a Ministry of Health-licensed community pharmacy on campus, catering to staff, students and the public. First-year students undergo rotational placement on a continuous basis, where they learn the various skills and techniques of running a community pharmacy.
We also provide 20 weeks of attachment training to our students. Students will undergo separate four-week stints of:
- Hospital pharmacy training
- Clinical pharmacy training
- Industrial pharmacy (sterile products) training,
- Industrial pharmacy (non-sterile products) training, and
- Community pharmacy training.
*each training period is 4 weeks long
Pharmacy’s in High Demand Worldwide
No matter where you go, one thing remains the same: people will always need healthcare. Pharmacists are always in high demand because they play a crucial role in all societies. Job security is high, because we will always need the skills you learn from a pharmacy degree.
Studying pharmacy can open doors to overseas opportunities as well. For instance, you could get a Doctor of Pharmacy degree in the United States via QIU’s bridge programme with Pacific University, Oregon.
Under the bridge programme, students will complete the first two years of QIU’s Bachelor of Pharmacy programme. They will continue in Pacific University’s 3-year Doctor of Pharmacy degree programme. Then, it’s time to graduate with a Doctor of Pharmacy degree from Pacific University.
Studying Pharmacy is Perfect if You Don’t Like Blood or Surgeries
Here’s the truth: not everyone wants to handle life-or-death situations, emergencies, and blood. And that’s completely fine!
Basically, being a pharmacist allows you to help people, save lives, and make a difference without doing all that. You can be a hero by prescribing the right legally permitted medication. Perhaps even giving the right advice, or researching and creating the medicine that heals someone.
The tagline of QIU’s Faculty of Pharmacy is “Real World Holistic Education”. 100% of the FOP’s lecturers are qualified pharmacists—75% with PhDs and 62.5% registered with the Pharmacy Board of Malaysia. We provide a 160 credit-hour-programme, which is 15 to 20 credit hours more than other pharmacy faculties in Malaysia. We aim to create well-rounded graduates who are able to excel in various real-world pharmacy practice fields. Our programme has also obtained an “Excellent” status and the maximum 5-year accreditation by the Malaysian Qualification Agency (MQA) and Pharmacy Board of Malaysia in 2019 where we scored more than 90% in all 10 education areas assessed.JOIN QIU’s Bachelor of Pharmacy programme NOW!
