Health Science’s Dean Assists on International Pharmaceutical Federation Education Advisory Group

Professor Sabiha Essack.

Professor Sabiha Essack, Dean of UKZN’s School of Health Sciences was recently invited to serve on the Advisory Group of the Academic Instiutional Membership (AIM) Dean’s Forum of the International Pharmaceutical Federations’ Education (FIPEd) Initiative which met in Dublin at the 2013 FIP annual conference. Essack, a professional pharmacist and current chair of the South African Committee of Health Sciences Deans will represent sub-Saharan Africa over the 2013-2014 period.

The main area of discussion of the FIPed group was the 5 year business plan and priority activities planned for 2014-2018 with a sole purpose of investing in pharmaceutical education to ensure a professionally educated healthcare workforce, an appropriate academic and  institutional infrastructure and high quality competency-based education.

Key priority areas include the transformation of pharmaceutical education towards the provision of integrated, patient-oriented services. FIP has found that with over 2000 educational institutions worldwide providing pharmaceutical education, many leaders are resisting change and not moving quickly enough to meet the needs of the population.