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For the first time in India, an association of a particular segment of pedagogues, pharmacy teachers, is going to hold a comprehensive discussion on their ‘students and their future prospects in education’ in the annual conference of the teachers’ national body, the Association of Pharmacy Teachers of India or the APTI.
The organizing committee of the APTICON 2024 is now contemplating on what the areas of the issues of students and their future prospects should be discussed in the two-day national conference.
“The 27th annual conference of the Association of Pharmacy Teachers of India, christened as APTICON 2024 will be held in Bhubaneswar in Odisha on the 27th and 28th of September this year, and the conference will have various discussions on students’ careers and opportunities”, said Dr. Milind Umekar, president of the APTI national committee.
Dr Milind said the organizing committee is planning to approach the President of India, who originally belongs to Odisha, with a request to attend the inaugural function as the chief guest. After the ongoing general election, the national leaders of the APTI will try to seek an appointment with the President of India.
Meanwhile, the organizing secretary of the APTICON 2024, Dr. Mihir Kumar Kar from Bhubaneswar said the central government and all the state governments are only listening to the complaints and grievances of the pharmacy professionals and of the budding pharmacists. But no government is doing anything positively for properly utilizing the potential of the pharmacy professionals or graduates in pharmacies. He said there are lot of opportunities for the Pharm D graduates including assisting to doctors, but they are not utilized for that. In India a small handful of the diploma holders are utilized in pharmacies for dispensing medicines. In the case of B Pharm, M Pharm and Pharm D, they remain unutilized and their opportunities are missing. This will be the core subject of the discussion in the two days seminars in the APTICON 2024, said Dr. Mihir.
According to Dr. Mihir Kumar, there are several areas of profession for the professional utilization of pharmacists and they are one and the same in the international level. Even when the small countries in the world are giving utmost importance to pharmacy profession, in India there is only one area and one post under the central and the state healthcare departments, and that is the post of pharmacist and dispensing of medicines. He said, the government is not utilizing the potential of the Pharm D graduates, similarly those of the B Pharm and the M Pharm. When there is vacancy of a pharmacist in some hospital pharmacy, the government calls for application from diploma holders.
Still the post of clinical pharmacist has not been created in many states in India. They are the potential pharmacists to support the physicians in the healthcare management. In the supply chain system, in foreign countries, the whole logistics are monitored by the logistics pharmacist. In India that role is taken up by unqualified people. In hospitals the government has to create separate posts of hospital pharmacist, consultant pharmacists, staff pharmacist, technical pharmacist and the clinical pharmacist. APTICON 2024 will discuss all these matters in detail and pass various resolutions based on the issues, he added.
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