Bringing pharmacy students into the bioethics fold

CBEC’s Postgraduate Diploma in Biomedical Ethics (PGD) opened new venues for discussion on ethics in patient-physician interactions, research, public health, media and industry. Being both a student in a diverse group, and a teacher of many health cadres, I had opportunities to reflect on situations from different vantage points.

I realized that the least explored perspectives were those of pharmacy students, who have a five months clinical clerkship as a requirement for a Pharm.D degree at our institution, the University of Swabi, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. They are the most inquisitive about interactions with patients, but also the most naive about the workings of healthcare systems. In hospital settings, pharmacy students are not given much importance and their questions ignored – but I always find their queries very relevant.

In general, clinical ethics discussions revolve around patient-doctor interface and other players are considered less significant. But pharmacists are as important as doctors – be it in patient interaction or in human subject research. Particularly during COVID-19 vaccine trials, I observed that at many stations, research pharmacists had leading roles and were the key people answering questions related to vaccine development and side effects. I suspected that our pharmacy curriculum lacked depth and friends in the pharmacy academia confirmed that the clinical and research ethics components in their undergrad curriculum were rudimentary and outdated.

At this point, I made the ‘eccentric’ decision of focusing my PGD project on pharmacy students instead of the traditional doctors/trainees/nurses cohorts, with the intention of gradually developing it into a regular module in the undergrad pharmacy curriculum. I discussed my views with faculty in the Department of Pharmacy at Swabi University and they were enthusiastic. They agreed to pilot this module to final year students and submit it to the pharmacy council academic board for approval for future modules.

I can still recall the ‘huh?’ in my CBEC teachers’ response to the project, but they remained tolerant and supportive. During project sessions, my cohort was dedicated and interactive. The most memorable day was when my pharmacy students attended a hospital session run by an international organisation about an implementation research related to nutrition. The students challenged presenters about the consent form and its details, surprising both the audience and facilitators, leading to a decision to develop and share a comprehensive consent form before the formal start of research. I felt like my job was done and the message transferred.

The concluding day of the project was attended by faculty members from the University of Swabi and the Dean of the Medical College. They appreciated the project and showed their support by formally including the ethics module into the undergraduate curriculum.

I believe that biomedical ethics should be a mandatory component of pharmacy curriculums, moving us from physician-pharma relations to physician-pharmacist-pharma relations, and from patient-pharma interactions to patient-pharmacist-pharma interactions. This will have a positive impact on both clinical care and biomedical research involving pharmacists.

To watch video click here: https://siut.org/bioethics/perspective-1/