What the students think

Tasnim Salem is a third year pharmacy undergraduate. When she chose to study pharmacy, she expected to study about the human body, chemistry and about medical drugs.

"Now that I'm going to work placement, I realise I'm doing something different," she said. "I'm helping people by giving them drugs and communicating with them, especially now that I'm at a private pharmacy where patients often need information about drugs or cosmetics."

According to Tasnim, there isn't much counselling of patients in government pharmacies. "When training in a government hospital, you are concentrating on prescriptions and drugs," she said.

"But in private community pharmacies there is more communication with patients. Most of the patients are keen to be educated about drugs."

Sumeya Ahmad, a pharmacy student, at first thought of pharmacy as chemistry. "But after entering the programme, I realise I have to know about the reaction of the drugs within the body," she said.

"I learnt from seeing the structure of the drugs at the molecular level. So I've learnt the most in bio-pharmacy and chemistry.

"In the clinical area I've learnt about dealing with different kinds of patients. They need counselling about how the drugs will affect them.

"Some patients are nervous; they need to know a lot about the drug. If a doctor writes a high dose and a patient has a sensitive history, where the drug can make the situation worse, I can talk to the doctor about it.

Sumeya said that pharmacists often know more about a drug and a patient's likely reaction to it than doctors. "Doctors accept our advice because they know we know more about the drug," she said. "We can also provide them with information about new drugs."

Jukha Al Badawi, a third year medical imaging student, was very concerned about the effects of radiation before she took up medical imaging. "I had heard that it was harmful," she said.

"My teachers explained that we are protected from radiation. There are different ways to protect ourselves and the patients. We are taking physics, learning about different machines and what they are used for including CT, MRI, ultrasound angiography, and conventional radiography.

"We study biology and physiology and how to identify different pathologies and their appearance on the images. Sometimes we might spot something a doctor doesn't notice, for example, in the case of fractures.

"I learnt a lot during work placement in a government hospital in Oman for a month. They treated me as a worker instead of a student and I could learn from my mistakes.

"I worked in the theatre and emergency units. I dealt with trauma and special need cases, and learned not to panic with bleeding and multi-fractures.

Shaikha Al Shamsi, a medical imaging student, discovered that she liked dealing with patients when she entered the programme.

"Patients express their feelings about what they are suffering from," she said.

"I can explain to them why I am taking this particular image. I discovered that X-rays are not harmful if you follow correct procedures. And we have advanced modalities including nuclear medicine. From here we can do postgraduate studies in nuclear medicine."