To the Editor. With the rapid development of China's economy, medical resources gradually have become more abundant, driving people to set higher expectations for the quality of medical services in this country. To satisfy the increasing demand for enhanced medical services, China's Ministry of Public Health has set forward a recommendation that “the clinical pharmacist should take part in the diagnosis and treatment of disease, provide pharmaceutical care, and improve the quality of medical care” in 2002. With the importance that the Chinese government attaches to clinical pharmacy, training programs were established in many colleges and universities; the programs are equivalent to the doctor of pharmacy (PharmD) curriculum in the United States.
In 1989, the West China School of Pharmacy at Sichuan University offered the first 5-year bachelor of science (BS) degree in clinical pharmacy. Henceforth, clinical pharmacy education in China began to increase. However, because the development of clinical pharmacy was not considered practical at the time, it was abolished in 1998.1 In 2006, China Pharmaceutical University was allowed by the Ministry of Education to re-establish the 5-year BS degree in clinical pharmacy. From 2006 to 2010, the number of colleges and universities that offered clinical pharmacy education increased yearly. By 2010, 23 colleges provided clinical pharmacy education.
The duration of the programs and the degrees awarded for clinical pharmacy remain inconsistent. The program durations include 4, 5, 6, and 7 years, for which students are awarded the degrees BS, bachelor of medicine, master of science, and master of medicine, respectively. School officials have not implemented uniform standards for program duration and degree titles. Most of these programs entail establishing a lengthy schooling system for training clinical pharmacists before a professional degree is awarded,2 similar to the PharmD program in the United States. According to the statistics of the Pharmacy Administration Commission of the Chinese Hospital Association, more than 2400 clinical pharmacists will be needed annually up to 2015 to satisfy the requirements of the Ministry of Public Health. However, the total number of enrollees in all the programs amounts to only approximately 1700 students each year, which is far from adequate to satisfy social needs. Therefore, gradually expanding the enrollment capacity and training more clinical pharmacists are necessary measures.
Each school offered a different curriculum, but courses basically included a mix of humanities and social sciences (including physics, mathematics, pharmacoeconomics, ethics, professional communication, and statistics), biomedical sciences (including anatomy, pathology, microbiology, and immunology), pharmaceutical sciences (including medical chemistry, pharmacology, bioanalysis chemistry, pharmaceutics, pharmacokinetics, and biopharmaceutics), clinical sciences (including diagnostics, pharmacotherapy, and internal medicine), and pharmacy practice experiences (PPEs). PPEs were mainly completed in hospitals. A 6-month practice is normally arranged for the 4-year program, whereas a year's practice is usually arranged for the 5-year program.3 Compared with the curricula of pharmacy and other medical courses, a standardized curriculum for clinical pharmacy has not been established. The teaching content of this program involves the simple assembly of pharmacy and medical courses, as is currently implemented in some colleges. There is a lack of a systematic curriculum that encompasses the requisite tools for comprehensive training.
In recent years, China has made considerable progress in improving clinical pharmacy education. Colleges and universities that offer clinical pharmacy programs are steadily increasing each year. Because of the lack of accreditation standards and guidelines, colleges and universities have yet to achieve consistency in terms of training goals, curricula, program duration, and degree titles. Thereby, the need to promote the sound development of pharmacy education necessitates the establishment of a national accreditation agency that can formulate standards and guidelines.
Jun-hao Jiang, BSa, Yan Liu, MSa, Yu-jie Wang, MSb, Xin Liu, MSa, Maosheng Yang, PhDc, Yu Zeng, PhDc, Ping Deng, MSa, Qin-geng Li, MSa
aChongqing Medical University, Chongqing, ChinabLouisiana State University Agricultural Center, Baton Rouge, LAcHainan Medical University, Haikou, Hainan, China
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