For most newly graduated pharmacy students, the compulsory one-year pharmacy internship is the first step towards their service to the community and the start of their professional pharmacy careers in South Africa.
The internship year aims to allow graduates to apply the knowledge and skills they acquired during their undergraduate studies. Pharmacist interns need to meet specific requirements before they can register as pharmacists, including passing an online pre-registration examination, the completion of six continuing professional development activities and favourable progress reports completed by their supervising pharmacist.
A collaborative research project between the North-West University (NWU) and the South African Pharmacy Council (SAPC) aims to enhance the internship programme to cater for the changing health needs of South Africans.
Prof Martie Lubbe, from the Medicine Usage in South Africa (MUSA) research entity at the Faculty of Health Sciences and project leader of the pharmacist internship review project, says this project will have a significant impact on the further development of the internship programme.
“This project will enable us to provide relevant information to the SAPC to use as a framework for a possible re-engineering of the pharmacy internship programme. It will assist in aligning the programme with evolving health needs.”
She says the project will also have an impact in that it will enlighten the Department of Health and the Department of Higher Education and Training about what resources are needed and what funding to consider to ensure quality pharmaceutical care in the country. Employers will also learn about the gaps in internship training programmes. This will help them to implement the necessary improvement strategies.
The review comprises three facets: the structure of the pharmacy internship (including legal aspects), tutoring of pharmacist interns in the pharmacies during their internship, and the assessment of interns.
The project is funded through a service level agreement, with the SAPC covering most of the operating costs.
Project is result of long association
Prof Lubbe says the association of the NWU, and specifically MUSA, with the SAPC started many years ago. “We have been involved in many projects as consultants or as part of teams of researchers that also included other universities.”
She believes it is their good working collaboration that has led to the SAPC approaching the NWU to solely review the pharmacy internship programme.
“What makes this project even more exciting is that staff of the SAPC who work directly with the internship programme and NWU staff involved in the review can, through the project, also complete their doctoral degrees. We currently have three PhD students who are actively involved in the project. This includes a staff member of the SAPC, a full-time student and an NWU staff member.”
The project is currently in the implementation phase which, together with the interviewing of focus groups and the distribution to stakeholders of questionnaires covers the three facets of the project.
Prof Lubbe says they aim to complete the review by the end of 2024.
Prof Martie Lubbe
