Pharmacy School in Singapore

I had a bit of downtime today so my preceptor explained to me how pharmacy school works over here.  Because Singapore is a former British colony, it follows the UK system pretty closely in terms of education.  Pharmacy school here is four years like it is in the US but the program is to get a bachelors in pharmacy.  The students don't go to undergrad first like we do.  All four years are didactic and after they graduate with their BPharm, they must do a "pre-registration" year that is like our rotations.  During this year, they get paid so in that respect it's kind of like a residency.  For the most part, the students pick whether they want to do a year of retail or a year of hospital.  

There aren't a lot of clinical opportunities here.  My preceptor is part of the faculty at the National University of Singapore (NUS) and being a US trained pharmacist, has pushed very hard for the last six years to implement more clinical training and now the "pre-regs" have a little more flexibility in rotating to all 3 practice settings.  Because NUS is the only school of pharmacy in the country and trains all the pharmacists, it has a unique problem in needing to balance the entire curriculum so that the pharmacists are ready to encounter whatever setting they practice in, whether it is regulatory (i.e. like the FDA), retail, hospital, clinical, academia or another area.  That's why my preceptor says it's been a real struggle to change the curriculum.  

Since he's been here, NUS has implemented a PharmD program to get the clinical training in and the program is expanding.  The students are able to go overseas (only to UIC in Chicago for now) for rotations to get a better sense of what pharmacists can do as part of a clinical team much like I'm able to come to Singapore and experience pharmacy here.  It's pretty awesome!