Nuclear Pharmacy challenges and strategies in academics: Paradigmatic study

Mohammad Muqtader Ahmed*¹Kawkab Mohammed², Farhat Fatima¹, Saad Maria Alshahrani ¹, Ahmed Alalaiwe ^1
1Department of Pharmaceutics, College of Pharmacy Prince Sattam Bin Abdulaziz University P.O.Box 173, Al-Kharj-11942, KSA
²Department of Pharmaceutics, Riyadh ELM University, Riyadh, KSA

A B S T R A C T
Background: Progressive growth in geriatric population presents many public health challenges and opportunities for trained nuclear pharmacist in the health care management for the diagnostic and treatment of general and genetic diseases. The present study highlights some challenges of the nuclear pharmacy course learning in the academic setups and its remedial strategies. Methods: The course objectives drafted based on the regulatory guidelines and social and industrial requirements. The course specification was drafted based on the course objectives by including the course contents from the standard references and benchmarks in the field of nuclear pharmacy. The content of the course was validated from the experts and projected with different activities to enhance learning. Both conventional and modern teaching methodologies were adopted to deliver the course content to the participants. Evaluation parameters set to measure the learning outcomes at different levels and stages during the learning process to ensure all the set objectives were achieved. Results: The total numbers of participants were 55 divided into two sessions of an academic year 2016-17. Participants with ≤75% of attendance excluded from the study at the final assessment. All participants are actively involved in the research lab visits and activities enclosed to accomplish the course. The questioner at the end of the course reflects 88 and 92% of participants in respective sessions were satisfied and enjoyed the learning of the course. Discussion: Most of the universities offering pharmacy course doesn’t have the nuclear pharmacy course and or its content up to satisfactory levels. Thus the presented model could serve as a benchmark to design the course content by employing the modern technological tools available for better didactic of nuclear pharmacy course in the pharmacy undergraduate’s programme.
Keywords: Demand and Opportunities, Nuclear Pharmacy, Didactic, academics, strategies, Guidelines, pharmacy undergraduate’s programme