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My name is Chris Cairns. I'm the professor of pharmacy practice here at Kingston
and I am also the head of the department of pharmacy. My job is really
as a professor of pharmacy practice is to lead on the pharmacy practice issues,
both teaching and research, because the vast majority of our students become
pharmacists at the end of the day and my job is to ensure that they become,
hopefully in the fullness of time, good pharmacists.
My other main job as head of department, is to look after the administrative
and managerial issues associated with the school of pharmacy.
That includes things like getting our courses accredited with the
regulatory body, dealing with fitness to practice issues for the pharmacy students
who are considered as student health care professionals, and coordinating the
staff in the school.
My background is not traditionally that you would associate with an academic -
I worked for 30 years in the National Health Service as a pharmacist in hospitals,
finishing up as a chief pharmacist in a very busy inner city hospital where
I also worked as a general manager for clinical support services.
A fairly big job where we had a budget of about 25 million pounds,
which is a fairly large responsibility, in addition to professional responsibilities.
I have actually taught pharmacy students, particularly at postgraduate level,
and pharmacists / pre-registration pharmacists, for a long time during my career.
And I moved into academia about... in 2004 as a chair in pharmacy practice.
I am a pharmacist obviously, and I see my job really as trying to
nurture the next generation of pharmacists.
There are three accredited courses to associate with pharmacy here at Kingston.
The main one, which has the largest number of students, is the MPharm programme,
the masters in pharmacy programme, which is the traditional pharmacy route to
qualifying as a pharmacist. At the University, we teach the first four years
of the whole programme and students graduate with a masters degree in pharmacy.
Having done that they can then go on and do the fifth year of training for a pharmacist
as pre-registration training, before going for the register.
In addition we have two other courses with smaller numbers.
One for students who perhaps haven't done as well at school and that's the
foundation degree in pharmaceutical and chemical sciences - that is a two year programme
and the successful students on that programme can enter directly into the
second year of the pharmacy programme and would then go forward onto getting their MPharm.
We also run a course for pharmacists from outside the European Union
who wish to requalify in the United Kingdom and that's a diploma programme
that runs over a single year.
Students who are successful on this overseas pharmacist programme can then
move forward to do their pre-registration training and subsequently,
if they pass the registration exam, they will register as a
pharmacist in the United Kingdom.
What makes Kingston's pharmacy courses different? I think the big difference is
we are very patient focused. Pharmacists at the end of the day, whether they
are in a community pharmacy or hospital pharmacy, their job is to help
look after people who are unwell. Their expertise in the science and
application of medicines is how they do that.
We, from day one of the course, work with the science and we work with
the practice together to hopefully integrate processes and move things forward.
Students do clinical placements in first, second, third and in fourth year.
And so our aim really is to produce pharmacists who know and have
the expertise to help sick people to get better and I think that's
a great strength of our course and we will build upon that in the coming years as well.
Another great asset is that a very large number of our academic staff are pharmacists
and many of them practice in the community, hospital and industrial settings
as well as work here; and they have the real ability to bring in
day-to-day experience from today into our course and into our teaching
and our students benefit greatly from that.
It's obvious that the vast majority of our graduates will become pharmacists,
the majority of those being in the community or hospital practice, but there are other
opportunities - working in the pharmaceutical industry,
obviously becoming academic pharmacists like myself and my colleagues,
working with the regulatory bodies and professional bodies - so there is a
whole range of opportunities. That being said, the vast majority will
work in the community, with a sizable minority, probably about 20 - 30%
in hospital pharmacy. They all give fulfilling careers and they are obviously
a vital part of our country's healthcare system.
What do we do to help students to choose and make their decisions about what areas
they want to work in and how they get jobs? Well, obviously the placement programme
is very helpful - it allows pharmacy students to see what pharmacists do
and how pharmacists contribute to the healthcare system.
It gives them opportunities to decide whether they want to work in the community or
the hospital sector.
We also have a careers fair every year where people from community chains
- like the major chains like Boots, Superdrug, the supermarket pharmacies,
like Sainsburys, Morrisons, some of the smaller chains and
pharmacists from the National Health Service - come in and they
have stands and they talk to the students, give them material about what the careers are
and how to apply. One of our staff is actually part employed by one of the major chains
and she helps to coordinate a summer placement programme with that chain
and that organisation tends to appoint its preregistration pharmacists
from those students who've done summer placements with them.
We also encourage the students to work together and there are a couple
of student bodies for pharmacy students -
the Kingston University Pharm Students Association (KUPSA)
and the Kingston branch of the BPSA
(the British Parmaceutical Students Association) - and we encourage and support them;
and they run a whole range of individual events as well,
many orientated about future careers and professional issues.
Last but not least, particularly third and fourth year students,
are invited to attend local pharmaceutical forum meetings
that are run by the profession and there are meetings actually held at Kingston
which the students are welcome to come along to, to get the opportunity not only to develop
themselves, but also to meet pharmacists from a wide variety
of branches of the profession.