British Pharmacological Society collaborates with Gulf Medical University’s College of Pharmacy

The British Pharmacological Society (BPS) and Gulf Medical University College of Pharmacy conducted an educational workshop, targeting students and practitioners from all pharmacy disciplines, to strengthen knowledge base and best practices on the future of healthcare systems, medical education, prescription writing skills, prescribing errors, and the BPS Framework of Prescribing Safety Training and Assessment.

The conference featured full-spectrum presentations from speakers of Gulf Medical University’s Colleges of Pharmacy and College of Medicine, and two keynote presentations by the Chancellor Hossam Hamdy and Professor Simon Maxwell of the British Pharmacological Society (BPS). The presentations were followed by a Q&A panel discussion wherein the participants received hands-on training to using the online platform for prescribing skills assessment and navigating through its diverse features.

Prof. Hossam Hamdy delivered the keynote speech on Future of Healthcare Systems and Medical Education: Implication to Prescription writing skills. He explained that Academic Healthcare Systems and innovation will be the norms for future medical education. “The training of students will be in all healthcare related facilities in the community. Entrustable professional activities will be measured more frequently at different points of the students learning trajectory, checking their Readiness for Practice in a multidisciplinary team-based practice.”

Prof. Hossam Hamdy also stated that research and innovation will be integral to the students’ learning experience. “Students should be exposed to how researchers think and behave and be embedded in a research environment.” He addressed a gathering of over 100 participants, including faculty from various leading medical colleges in the UAE.

Gulf Medical University’s faculty from the College of Pharmacy and Medicine shared with the participants important take home messages from their experience with the BPS prescribing skills assessment over the past three years. Vice Chancellor for Quality & Institutional Effectiveness and Dean of gulf Medical University’s College of Pharmacy, Dr Sherief Khalifa comments: “The aim of this workshop is to unite faculty members from colleges of pharmacy across the UAE on the need to integrate prescribing skills in our pharmacy curricula. This is a key initiative that pharmacy academia should take in order to ensure patient safety and advance the pharmacy profession to include independent prescribing for pharmacists."