Faculty of Pharmacy Introduces Pharm.D Degree

By Daniel Kelechi, Arthur Ogbedebor, Mariam Abojede and Adesewafunmi Adeusi

The University of Lagos (UNILAG) Faculty of Pharmacy has launched a new Doctor of Pharmacy Degree programme for its College of Medicine students. This was made known by the Dean of the Faculty, Professor Gloria Ayoola, during an interview with UNILAG Sun. 

The programme degree, known as Pharm.D, is organised as an extensive training program for the Faculty of Pharmacy students, focused on patient-centred care. 

Describing the new program, Prof. Ayoola said, “It’s not a Doctorate Degree or PhD. It’s a professional degree which involves an extra year of training. And in that final year, students involved in the programme will do more patient-centred learning.”

She also added that the program will focus on more “personalized medicine” that will feature research and case studies, as well as the use of their Good Manufacturing Process (GMP) laboratory facilities.

Speaking on the implementation of the new degree program, Professor Ayoola said, “We are migrating on to the doctor of pharmacy training with this new set of admitted students. So eventually, B.Pharm will be phased out.

“Students will be spending more time on the wards, in the clinics. So that they will be able to cope with the challenges facing pharmaceutical care in Nigeria. This is so that when they leave school, they will be called doctors. Which shows that they are experts in their field,” she said.

The Dean further highlighted some of her achievements which include the establishment of a GMP laboratory where drugs are manufactured in the faculty and also, the inauguration of an alumni database which has facilitated a better relationship between the faculty and its alumni. 

“We have a good manufacturing process laboratory which is a laboratory where we can manufacture drugs here in the faculty of pharmacy and that came about from a research output of one of our lecturers”, she said.

Explaining the smooth relationship between her faculty and its alumni, she said, “We’ve been able to improve the engagement with our alumni. We sent out a Google Form link to our alumni and this has helped us to collate their information for easy communication.