Pharmacy
Pharmacists are health professionals
and
experts on medicines. They develop
and manufacture medicines and give
information on medicines, drug therapy
and disease management to patients,
doctors and other health professionals.
What can I do when I graduate?
Most pharmacists work in community
pharmacies, while
others work in hospitals. Many find varied careers
in
industry, where they may be involved with developing
new products, quality control, evaluation, or marketing.
The medical publishing industry employs pharmacists
as editors and writers, and government organisations
use pharmacists in legal, advisory, technical, editorial
and administrative positions. Graduates are increasingly
becoming involved in teaching and research.
As pharmacists registered in New
Zealand have reciprocal
registration in Australia and the UK, there are
many
opportunities to work and travel.
If you want to continue your studies,
Otago offers internal
postgraduate research programmes leading to a master’s
or PhD degree. Students can study a range of professional
postgraduate programmes such as medicines
management, herbal medicines and sports pharmacy,
which go towards a Diploma in Clinical Pharmacy
and a Master of Clinical Pharmacy by distance learning.
What will I study?
If you gain admission to pharmacy,
the Otago Health
Sciences First Year counts as the first year of your
four-year degree at New Zealand’s National
School
of Pharmacy.
Students selected for Pharmacy
meet up informally to
get to know each other and meet the staff at a camp
held
just before the second year starts.
In the second year and the first
half of the third year you
study pharmaceutical, clinical and social sciences,
including papers in biochemistry, microbiology,
pathology, pharmacology, and physiology. The second
half of the third year and the final year are spent
on
professional practice and quality use of medicines,
involving real patients and taking a holistic approach
to
treating disease. At this point, some time is spent
in
community and hospital pharmacies, either in New
Zealand or as part of an international exchange
scheme in approved countries.
After graduation there is a year’s
pre-registration training
programme run by the Pharmacy Council of New
Zealand at an approved site in a hospital or community
pharmacy. Once you are a registered pharmacist there
is a range of further studies available at the Otago
School,
including professional postgraduate programmes for
working pharmacists to keep their knowledge up to
date.
Further information
School of Pharmacy, University of Otago,
PO Box 913, Dunedin, New Zealand.
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