SEPTEMBER,Edition # 33, 2001

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News was published last week in the The Pharmaceutical Journal (UK) reporting that Pharmacy schools have had to lower entrance marks due to falling enrolments. It was reported that applications have fallen by 10 to 15% from last year.
Here in Australia however we've seen a growth in the number of pharmacy schools, and increased intakes in existing schools due to solid demand for places.
So what are we doing in Australia that is so positive to promote our profession that isn't being done overseas?
The answer is probably nothing.
I suspect that the ownership restrictions still in place for community pharmacy go a long way to explaining this.
At the moment owning a community pharmacy is still a lucrative business, which also offers a professional career.
In the UK there is not the same financial incentive to be a pharmacist due to the open ownership situation.
Dr Alan Nathan from the Society in the UK is quoted as saying:
"It’s down to the fact that students and their parents are weighing up the financial implications of courses and looking for a return on their investment. Students are going to information technology courses and business studies because they see that that is where the money is."
At the moment this is not a problem for pharmacy, due to the public perception that there is good money in pharmacy (which to a large extent is true for those who get into managerial or ownership roles in community pharmacy).
But could it become a problem?
If ownership restrictions are removed could we see falling interest in pharmacy if it becomes little more than a 9-5 job for a multinational with little career path or professional satisfaction?
We need to be prepared now for the worst, and start to promote pharmacy as a career. The new professional services which are ready to be rolled out are a start, and a more active pharmacy presence in the hospital system (outside of the teaching hospitals) will help.
But again, are these services being advertised?
The Domiciliary Medication Management Review (DMMR) scheme is supposed to start next month, yet I've seen no advertising material yet that is aimed at the users of this service.
Apologies if my regional location precludes me from some promotion in the cities, but our patients need the services as well.
If the Federal Government truly believes in the DMMR system then it should start to support it with some dollars. We all know how keen they are to promote every other programme they've started through the mainstream media.
There is a decreased pool of students studying science in the UK so the health professions are competing for an ever diminishing number of students, and pharmacy is losing the battle, particularly outside of London.
This is a concern in Australia as well.
There is a fear that a large number of places in pharmacy schools are being taken by students with intentions of going on to study medicine.
This hasn't been realised yet, but as the number of places in pharmacy courses increases it has to be accepted as a possibility.
(You have to admit though, that someone with pharmacy and medical training would probably make a better doctor?)
So could this situation ever arise in Australia?
At the moment the entrance scores are lower at the regional schools, which is understandable given that the greatest demand for places is still in the established universities.
The issue of entrance scores is clouded though, by large numbers of enrolments in pharmacy courses by people who started in other degrees (mostly with lower entrance scores) and decided to change to pharmacy.
In my graduating class last year this would have been maybe a third of the students, and anecdotal evidence suggests the proportion is rising. This trend is actually maintaining slightly higher entrance scores, but the difference is not really that great.
On our first day of pharmacy school we were told that we 120 students were just one-tenth of those who had applied. So the entrance scores will be high no matter what.
The lack of enrolments in the UK is particularly worrying as their pharmacist shortage is crippling the profession, with pharmacies being forced to close due to a lack of pharmacists.
And again in the UK, as in Australia there is no mainstream media coverage. Compare this to the blanket media attention received by nurses in New South Wales recently.
It's the promotion of our profession which will make the difference in solving the pharmacist shortage, and its a challlenge we've yet to accept.
The full article from The Pharmaceutical Journal can be found at: http://www.pharmj.com/Editorial/20010825/news/crisis.html
Ends

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