Black Swan:
Ha! Isn't it obvious that the desire to be called 'Doctors' is a huge driving force behind this development?
PharmD in other countries is like a post graduate degree but the Nigerian case is different. PharmD in Nigeria is first degree .

Pennywise: Everybody wants to be a doctor withour having to go through the stiff competition and rigors that medical school entails. The pharmacists, the optometrists also recently started a 6 yr program and are now called doctors doing all kinds of things including seting iv lines in phamacies and 'optometry clinics'. I wonder what the nurses and radiographers are still waiting for. Truly competent unionists perhaps?.

Pharmacists and Optometrists who left school long bf this fraudulent scheme was contrived are brandishing complimentry cards appending 'Dr' to their names. We dont know who is a real doctor anymore n Nigeria.

Pharmacists have since abdicated their roles in the health sector to traders and are now looking for fertile grounds by corrupting an allied profession. Pharma practice in Nigeria has stagnated in Nigeria so badly. While breakthroughs are being reported in other countries their only achievement in Nigeria is being called doctors.

But the sad part of this is that if u want to be a doctor and still legitimately proceed with your parmaceutical dreams, U can. They are called clinical pharmacologists and the country has many of them. But these charlatans want a short quick route. Why not? Everything goes in Nigeria.

For those who are quick to draw a parallel with what is obtainable in the US and other countries, the Nigerian Pharm D is a fraud for many reasons I dont have the time to go into. Ghana started bc they saw Nigeria and many other countries with vocal trade unions will soon follow.

The Nigerian pharmacists have simply taken the fight against doctors to a whole new level and they consider this a victory in what is no more than licensed quackery. The consequence is a chaotic health sector where nothing appears to be what it seems.

Perhaps this wouldnt have happened if doctors out of selfishness have not tenaciously held on to leadership of the health sector in appointments to political and administrative positions! God help Nigeria.

Knowledge9000:

Hogwash! Very arrogant being. This fruit of arrogance this OLD MAN proudly exhibit is ubiquitous in virtually every segment of our polity and responsible for running this country to the toilet. This is why we are backward...technocrats are trying to effect change, however some intransigent Nigerians are religiously bent on maintaining the status quo. The is how they ran Dr. Bart Nnnaji out of the country, rendering his ideas fruitless. The article clearly states the differences between BS in Pharmacy and Pharm D., and the deficiencies in BS. The differences stated are self-explanatory. Your subjective and anecdotal views are completely irrelevant.

obayaya:

Typical of Nigerians. Instead of trying to revive our non existent drug manufacturing sector, they are more obsessed in drifting into another role.

As if pharmacist haven't always helped doctors in recommending drugs and monitoring patients.

adeola_drg:

The answer to your question is an emphatic YES!!

Pennywise: Going to other well structured countries to import corrupt variants of pharmacy programs cannot help the practice of pharmacy in Nigeria. It will be abused as we have seen. Pharmacies are being turned to mini clinics with 'side labs' on account of 'pharmD' They are even transfusing blood without the slightest hint of diagnosis and treatment of transfusion reactions. This is creating a regulation nightmare in some places.

Real pharmacists should stand up and speak against these lazy treasure hunters in the interest of the profession.

These same people are also in the medical profession hoding on to CMD positions like its their birth right. They have no formal training to head hospitals but from the look of things they might want to take cue from our gold digging pharmacists to legitimize their hold by introducing one or two courses in hospital management.

obayaya:

Bros!!! I'll have to tell you sharrap for a second time. no offence.

With all due respect to the academia and the so called technocrats in pharmacy, They are probably good in pharmacy and pharmacology but they are poor administrators and policy formulators.

In Nigeria today, all pharmacists do is sit in the hospital dispensing drugs or set up a phantom pharmaceutical companies and start importing drugs from countries like Vietnam. VIETNAM for God's sake.

and This Pharm.D shit is all they could come up with? as a way of addressing the shortcomings of Pharmacy in Nigeria? Like seriously? This degree IMHO is a way of justifying their sitting in the hospitals. And will give them more impetus to keep drowning in mediocrity.

Canada still accepts B.Pharm as minimum requirement, even Vietnam. Yet their drug making industry is still active.

So spare me your rants and your grammar

obayaya:

Can you please kindly share how that's gonna happen?

Thanks

nagoma: The "wannabe Doctors" are desperate . Pharmacists , Optometrists and even ambulance drivers want to be referred to as Docrors and they refuse to go through medical school. The confusion in Nigeria's healthcare continues as we copy blindly from America.

xlad21: nobody is really interested in titles. There's no glory in being called a Dr. Go and ask recent medical graduates, 80% of them wish they studied accounting or economics or engineering in school. That being said....many people on this trend are talking out of a position of ignorance, to be fair to them, the article didn't do the topic justice. Bpharm and PharmD are 2 totally different degrees. There's a reason only one school currently offers it in nigeria. PharmD holders are meant for hospital and hospital work alone, while there are several other aspects of pharmacy care including production, research, chemistry and even sourcing that the general pharmacist is supposed to be doing, hence the need for Bpharm. Some schools abroad actually offer both degrees separately. Personally I don't think Nigeria has reached the level of medical care to be affording these degrees, the PharmD program is very restrictive, our medical doctors can barely get decent jobs in hospitals, and now you wanna restrict pharmacists to hospitals too. The Bpharm degree offers so much more flexibility, that allows the pharmacist to be able to do other things if he can't get a look in at the hospitals. I think any school that has the intention and capability to offer PharmD should do so, let's not turn this into another stupid pharmacist vs dr argument.

nagoma: The "wannabe Doctors" are desperate . Pharmacists , Optometrists and even ambulance drivers want to be referred to as Docrors and they refuse to go through medical school. The confusion in Nigeria's healthcare continues as we copy blindly from America.

sikells:
this post is just not encouraging at all..why must doctors always have problems with other health professionals?y do they seek to control all health professions...health professionals are supposed to work together..little wonder why our health system is just nothing to write home about

adeola_drg:

And what is the non existent manufacturing sector u're talking about? We have the best Pharmaceutical Industry in Africa second only to South Africa. Bring ur stats! What are you talking about?

ACM10:

For the first time we are on the same side of the debate.

It is every paramedics desire to bear the title 'Dr', but none of them wants to pass through the medical school and study the nitty-gritty of Anatomy, Physiology, Biochemistry, Pharmacology and Pathology. I was teaching a Med. Lab student Immunology, he continued to interrupt me, telling me that I was paying attention to details, reminding me that he is not a studying Med/Surg. Explaining further that he only need a general overview of the course to enable him pass exam. Tommorrow, the same guy will rub shoulders with doctors in the hospital.

adeola_drg:

It's so funny how u seem to know the pharmacy profession more than the people practicing it.

adeola_drg:

When m back from church

Shori: I..... I'm stupefied! ''mini clinics''? ''side labs''? ''blood transfusion'' in Nigeria? Do you really have to come up with conjectures just to denigrate the pharmacy profession? Where did the transfusion illegally happened? When did it happen? It's not about the ''Dr'' title thing,but meeting up to international standards!

Shori: Tsk! Pharmacy students take Biochemistry,Anatomy,Pharmacology and Physiology with Pathology the only exception. . . Come up with something ''better'' please. . .

ACM10:

The catchword there is NITTY-GRITTY. Even Physiotherapists/Nurses/Radiographers do study these courses too, but not in details. Does pharmacy students do practicals with cadaver? I mean dissecting cadaver region by region. It is only Anatomy/MedSurg students that does it.

Pennywise:

Its a relation. I went to visit him. I saw 2 others on drip with a young pharmD brandishing stetoscope. What insult.

Find Out!:



Kindly produce your source for the bolded. I wonder how people like you consciously type false information and confidently click the submit button, knowing fully well that thousands of people will read what you've posted. Can you please give the name of ONE university (out of the over 4500 institutions in the USA) that offers the B.Pharm degree?

For anyone who's interested in how to become a pharmacist in the US, a simple google search which Mr. Misinformer above appears incapable of doing will produce a link like this http://www.wikihow.com/Become-a-Pharmacist


@Topic, I wholeheartedly support the conversion, but of course the necessary infrastructure, facilities and curriculum must be in place so that a Pharm.D. degree from Nigeria will be readily considered equal to a Pharm.D. degree obtained anywhere else outside the country.

Shori: I..... I'm stupefied! ''mini clinics''? ''side labs''? ''blood transfusion'' in Nigeria? Do you really have to come up with conjectures just to denigrate the pharmacy profession? Where did the transfusion illegally happened? When did it happen? It's not about the ''Dr'' title thing,but meeting up to international standards!

Shori: what an interesting Lie. . .more power to your elbow!

Shori: ...and now you're telling me Medical students do pharmacology in details more than the pharmacy students? To your question,No.

pDude: Gloried medicine sellers

ige101: More drama yet to unfold,not until the Fed Govt come up with a uniform salary structure for everyone in the health sector,this drama wont cease.What we just read is not unconnected with the discrepancies in salaries of health workers.Let everyone be put on same structure and see if there won't be peace.