PHARMACY PRACTICE STILL A CHALLENGE IN INDIA

With a decade of introduction of pharmacy practice education in India, there has been a paradigm shift in 

the practice of pharmacy in the country. In spite of this, pharmacy practice education faces many 

challenges before it can transform the pharmaceutical care practice in India from a product-oriented 

approach to patient-oriented care. Pharmacy education in India is mainly industry oriented. The

curriculum at the undergraduate level is more or less designed for preparing students towards industry 

rather than for patient-oriented services like hospital, clinical, and community pharmacy. To train the 

graduate pharmacists to provide patient-oriented services, a pharmacy practice course was started at a postgraduate level. Pharmacy practice curriculum enters its tenth year in India since its beginning in 1997. 

The curriculum trains the postgraduates in rational therapeutics, patient counseling, pharmacovigilance, 

therapeutic drug monitoring, clinical research,and toxicology to name a few. With the efforts being on

introducing the advanced clinical-based courses of the Doctor of pharmacy (PharmD) degree in India, there is a need to contemplate where the profession stands at this juncture. As of today pharmacy practice is at a 

crossroads in India, facing numerous challenges that need to be addressed before marching further. This 

letter is an effort to identify deficiencies, regulatory requirements, and evaluate the current status of pharmacy practice education in India. 

Some key-Insights like:

• The profession is restricted only to the hospitals linked to a pharmacy practice school
• Regulatory framework does not recognize the need for clinical pharmacist at the national level
• Trained clinical pharmacists toward industry as there is almost no opportunity in the hospital setting
• The need for adding industry relevant topics in course curriculum – Dilemma of Dilution vs. Evolution.

Please add some of your comment relevant to this topic..

Thanking you
Akshaya Srikanth
Pharm.D Internee
Hyderabad, India