After being a pharmacy student for awhile, I think I quickly learned that Malaysian community pharmacies are really quite different than the ones in the UK ):

Any idea where to get them? I didn't know that I'll be getting the BB1m so I went on ahead to order Guyton and Hall's textbook on medical physiology since I thought it'll be a useful reference for me.


Oh and anyone have any idea whether I should be applying for internships at the end of my first year (a few months from now)? 4 months break... I'm interested in interning in the manufacturing/industrial side of pharmacy to see how things work there.

I've heard of Kamal, but I live in PJ so it's quite a drive IMO.

Thanks for the list! but I couldn't find any appropriate ones for now.

Do you think it's possible for me to work part time at a community pharmacy for a month? How should I approach them? Any particular pharmacies that are good?

I'm from Taylor's so from what I've heard; not useless. Universities put alot of money in to develop their schools of pharmacy, so if I'm right, they should get their accreditation unless something goes terribly wrong. We get interviewed by the MPB every year to check on the course too.

BTW universities can only be accredited by the MPB after they have a pioneer batch (means they have their first batch of graduates) so that's why many universities are not "recognized" yet I think.

Thanks zstan btw!

Have you tried? I just finished my first year so I'm just thinking of how I want to be productive with my holidays...
I mean, spending 1 month working unpaid sounds depressing....

the 2+2 mpharm program is no more

I'm doing the program right now too so...


Anyway, Taylor's IS offering a new BPharm program that is homegrown that will include an opportunity to credit transfer to the University of South Australia, but I'm unclear of the details.

AFAIK, Cardiff scrapped their program with Taylor's because of "higher up business" reasons. I'd strongly recommend trying for an MPharm 2+2 program at Notts since it's a really safe option. About the distance, perhaps renting a place nearby would solve that problem. (I live 2 mins away from Damansara Jaya so heh). For now, I would actually recommend a Bpharm program that would allow you to transfer to Aussie/NZ (I think IMU Bpharm allows for transfer to UQ and Otago) since their rankings are quite high up as well. Do note that whether you twin to the UK or Aussie, you most likely will have an issue confirming a job there since what I heard is that both countries are pretty strict with employing foreigners now. (Might need to double check for Australia, but I can say that I'm quite sure that it will be difficult to get a job in the UK)



This post has been edited by Decky: Aug 15 2014, 05:24 PM

lol I'm not sure. Notts is always a safe choice though..


I'd really consider Monash too, since Monash' pharmacy ranking is incredibly high up there and I heard from my friends doing pharmacy there that they have access to all the lectures online from the Aussie campus. My own experience is that a twinning program with lousy lecturers is like waiting to give birth; the first two years are excruciatingly painful since I am being forced to self study all this new material and info from textbooks since my lecturers are nearly completely useless to me. (thankfully there were a few helpful ones, but only a handful)

I have some friends in Notts; while they weren't all too happy with their lecturers, some of them were at least still useful AFAIK (as in, you could still ask them questions and they'd understand your questions and give an appropriate reply)

Some of my friends in IMU doing the BPharm program there told me that the lecturers there were not bad and they had that online lecture thing too which they found to be pretty useful.

Haven't heard any complaints from Monash friends tho...

I think no twinning programs will guarantee you the same quality of education as it's UK/Aussie counterpart regardless of where you do it. I haven't heard any of my friends from any other pharmacy school praising their local lecturers yet (the best comments are to say that they (the lecturers) are "okay"). But since it's university level, I guess we are expected to rely heavily on ourselves and tutorials (in taylor's we have some Cardiff lecturers visiting occasionally ans that's when we really benefit from them since we're able to ask them any question under the sun or E-mail them for our queries).

I've only completed year 1 though so I'm not sure just how important lecturers are for your performance since I did pretty well without much help from my lecturers this year even though I studied at the last minute (my classmates did better too). IMO, if you have a strong foundation of knowledge in A levels, first year should be only slightly more difficult.

So perhaps factors such as price, location, accreditation and community should be considered heavily as well.

AFAIK, the notts twinning program has been going on for nearly a decade (I think), so I'm pretty sure it's a course that has withstood the test of time. I've personally met a working pharmacist who graduated from the twinning program and she's doing really well I suppose.

I guess from what I know, the weakness of these twinning programs for us Malaysians isn't so much of an academic factor (e.g. most of my seniors do really well in their exams over at Cardiff, but the feedback we got was that they're knowledge of how pharmacies work (practical knowledge) was lacking.), but more of a practical one since we didn't grow up using their local healthcare system. But apart from that, I'm pretty sure you'll be treated no differently than the locals there and are expected to perform like them or even better than them.

EDIT: double post, woops./

This post has been edited by Decky: Aug 23 2014, 01:52 PM

Anyone with experience in hospital pharmacy? My modules have been mainly about community pharmacy (UK based) so I don't exactly know what happens in the hospital as a pharmacist, especially in Malaysia.

I'm hearing that fresh grads (after qualification with the pharmacy board in Malaysia) who work in community pharmacies over here are getting like 7-8k a month but it's like 2k-3k in a hospital pharmacy. Plus, many working community pharmacists warned my classmates that if they like science and stuff, they should avoid community pharmacy in Malaysia because you hardly get to use the skills you've learned in uni over here. Comunity doesn't look appealing to me apart from the pay (if it's true) at this moment.

Wondering what it's like to be a hospital pharmacist and how the salary is like, anyone care to shed some light? Also, is a post grad degree in clinical pharmacy recommended if I plan to go down the hospital pharmacy path?

This post has been edited by Decky: Jan 14 2015, 02:10 PM

2nd year atm, doing a twinning program at taylors. will be heading to cardiff this summer.

wow thanks that was informative!


Wah, RM250 a year is quite a minimal increment :/

Hm, I got the figures from a few people who personally knows a working community pharmacist and a few others who have interned at popular chain pharmacies over here. Multiple sources from different places. AFAIK, I always thought it was 3k starting, but those sources might be outdated since they were based off websites like doctorjob


Therefore, if the pay increment is only 250 a year for a clinical pharmacist, then it'll take like 10 years to reach the pay of a fresh grad community pharmacist (if the figures that I got is true).



I'll be interning soon, so maybe I'll be able to double check with another community pharmacist.

Mm I see. I have a decision to make because I will (90%) have a choice to work in Aussie after I graduate, but I really don't mind taking a pay cut to come home because I love it here. However, I need to look at how big the cut is before I make up my mind.
Thanks for the info though.


Idk, my friend worked at her aunt's newly opened pharmacy and she was telling me how her aunt was finding it hard to find a pharmacist because fresh grads were asking for 6-7k ish since they said Watsons/Caring probably paid that much. They could be lying though.

Check today's Star front page guys lololol

community?

Also, I've got news from a lecturer from the UK that one of the reasons why many MPharm twinning courses are being shut down over here is because of stricter visa laws overe there in the UK. They can no longer guarantee us a pre-reg slot as well even more so a job over there (the word he used was "impossible") because of the current economic climate over there.

IF there's a DS!

I thought it would be intuitive for Malaysians to want DS, but after gathering some thoughts from my thread in RWI and reading the views offered in TheStar, I realize that there are plenty of misconceptions going around to fuel the anti-separation sentiment.

It's like people generally see this move as an act of benefiting government cronies instead of addressing safety issues. I was accused of fear mongering because I tried to correct a point that someone made about how if doctors really made mistakes, so many people would have doubted the GPs already.

With Doctors constantly writing in to TheStar trying to tell everyone how unreliable the pharmacy profession is and how this is all some government conspiracy, I really don't think DS is coming anytime soon. The rakyat still isn't properly informed about the roles of pharmacists in healthcare and about how drugs work in general.

I just came back from an interview with the malaysian pharmacy board at uni just now though, the professors assured us quite abit about how we don't necessarily need to have DS to make an impact in the healthcare system in Malaysia.

I'm doing a twinning course to Cardiff and a visiting professor from Cardiff told us that it was nearly "impossible" to secure a job in the UK as a foreigner with the current political climate.

Am studying pharmacy in Taylors atm. Should be flying off to the UK this september and I was thoroughly dissatisfied by the course in my 2 years here.

However, a new Dean was installed slightly about a year ago and he's been making quite a few welcome changes.

They've hired alot of new local lecturers and I heard that they're pretty good. 99% of the course people are chinese educated here though so take that into account

This post has been edited by Decky: Apr 20 2015, 09:47 PM