Programme Structure

The academic content of the units making up the programme have been developed within the context of key Knowledge Areas to meet Competency Standards essential to the practising pharmacist and the future of pharmacy. The table below provides an overall view of the unitised structure of the programme within identified knowledge areas.

Leadership: Teaching at a higher level consistent with a graduate entry programme is provided by Leadership Units (asterisk in the table) in the knowledge areas.

A Guide to the Academic Content of the Knowledge Areas

1. Pharmaceutical Practice: This area is concerned with the fundamental knowledge and its application to working as a pharmacist in a community, hospital or industrial setting. It includes consideration of the nature and use of the varied dosage forms of medication, dispensing practice, the quality use of medicines, and the fundamentals of communicating health care information to the public.
2. Clinical Pharmacy: Develops the roles of the pharmacist most directly concerned with the client's health and the well being of the community. It covers disease states and their treatment, the role of the pharmacist in medication review and in the broader context of providing health care information to the community, the ethics of pharmacy and includes a hospital placement.
3. Biomedicine and Population Health: Provides the necessary background in the biomedical and health sciences relevant to the practising pharmacist. It includes coverage of the fundamental sciences, such as pharmacology, pathology, microbiology, immunology, medical genetics, issues in public health important to the role of the pharmacist in the community, and new discoveries and biotechnologies relevant to future health care delivery.
4. Pharmaceutics: Considered here is the art and science of dosage forms, the techniques of the practice of pharmacy and activities that clearly identify the unique role of the pharmacist in the preparation of pharmaceuticals and therapeutic agents.
5. Pharmaceutical Chemistry: Consideration is given here to the physical, inorganic and organic chemistry of medicinal substances to understand the chemical basis for the behaviour of these substances in the body, their therapeutic attributes and modes of delivery. It includes coverage of procedures for the analytical analysis of medicinal preparations and quality control as well as the process of drug discovery.
6. Research: Essential to the continued development of the profession of pharmacy, it involves completion of a research project (selected from among the 5 knowledge areas given above) with emphasis on new approaches, discoveries and technologies in health care, pharmaceutical science and other areas relevant to pharmacy.