Many pharmacy school in Malaysia do twinning program with UK universities. And there is no BPharm degree in UK anymore, that is why, those twinning program have to accredited at Master level in order to twin with the UK universities.

BPharm is more than enough if you are likely to work in Malaysia, singapore or aus.

But why not go for MPharm if you have that option. You will great experiences in project and learning at Master level, in addition what you get in the end, is a Master degree.

Undergraduate Master degree actually because you are actually taught at Master levels, have to carried out a research project at Master level and tested for learning and key skills at Master level besides the extensive details in study. Just like some direct 4 years MEng.

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Added on May 7, 2008, 8:54 pmThe first 3 year, you will be taught at undergraduate bachelor degree level, and the final year are accredited at postgraduate master level studies in order to attain the Master degree.

You can stop (or if you achieved not-so satisfactory result) at third year and get something like BPharmSci (IIANM).

This post has been edited by youngkies: May 7 2008, 08:54 PM

bold: not in malaysia. not even UK too, because every pharmacy graduate graduated after 1997 has Master degree anyway. but master degree give you more opportunity if you are going into industrial.

the huge difference is the study key skill and the research project. the project that you will do will be at master level, researching along side the lecturer or phd / post-doc student. in the final fourth year, very little lecturers but plenty of group projects, assignment etc at master key skills.

yes master degree in Aus is postgraduate study. 4 years in Aus only get you a bachelor degree.

UK doesnt have BPharm anymore. And as for US, they dont have BPharm and MPharm either, but straight PharmD (doctor in Pharmacy) in 7 years IIANM.

if you are to work in aus, or malaysia, BPharm is enough. if you wanted to work in UK, MPharm would be advantageous, if you wanted to work in US, a doctorate degree in pharmacy would be the best to go then. different country require different preferred requirement for their profession.

just like any other postgraduate study of master degree.

rather than attending lectures, workshops most of the time and exams in the end like what you do in bachelor degree study, you will do a lot of lecturing the lecturer instead, plenty of assignments, group projects, presentations, case study, self assessment, and research at master level (making novel drugs or delivery system etc).

Nope. Nope never too much. Though the amount of people graduate and qualify as pharmacist is quite high every year, but the number of people leaving the job is high too.


Basically the career divided into 3 categories:

1. community pharmacy (so called retail pharmacy in Msia)

2. hospital pharmacy

3. industrial pharmaceutical.

1. Community / retail pharmacy in UK is where the pharmacist dispense medication to the patient presenting with a prescription from a doctor. Besides, the pharmacy might also offer various services such as diabetes testing, blood pressure testing, smoking cessation, health promotion and plenty more. They also make supply to doctor practices or health care centre. As for Msia, they do dispense drug but because usually the doctor clinic is allow to do that, hence pharmacy is under utilised. But mostly they make huge money by supplying drugs to the clinic.

2. Pharmacist in hospital do ward round, medicines management, writing guideline and protocols, plenty to study, pharmacist led clinic (e.g. warfarin, diabetes) and plenty more including dispensing, though most hospitals in UK have robot dispenser.

3. Industrial, yes basically they are manufacturing medicines. But as a pharmacist, you can do as Quality control or assurance officer, manufacturing officer, R&D, specialise in some equipment, even project manager such as developing a new factory in india, or representative of the company making deal with supplier, dealer, pharmacy, or government body or cleaner.

I read that if someone couldn't achieve a satisfactory in the 4th year, they can opt for BPharmSci instead.

Frankly, 4th year was not hard at all. I enjoyed it very much, because we have so much group projects and presentations, they were fun. But it was quite a lot of writing as well, critical writing of some drugs, etc, writing for journal/news/mag column in the first 4 months followed by some exams. For my Uni, if you have passed the exams in first semester (Jan) and pass all the assessments, basically you just have to do the project, submit meanwhile waiting for graduation in July.

particularly in community, the starting salary is high but the threshold is low. a fresh pharmacist can easily get £32k-£39k in community pharmacist as start, and easily reach 45k in the next 6-8 years and £55k after another 10 years. you can consider £55k per annum is the threshold, unless you involved in high managerial position, you won't go further than £55k. therefore many pharmacist when get to £45k per annum at the age around 30++ years old, they rather stay at that pay rate but work lesser hours, e.g. 3 days per week. especially with women, where they can spare plenty of time for their family. or some move out from permanent position to do locum work.

as for hospital, when the pharmacy get to band 8a-b, for abt £40-50k perannum, they work lesser hours (3 and half days per week) and focused in management of the hospital pharmacy, e.g. protocol writing, management of staff, trust meeting etc etc.

so all this extra 2 days left by the senior pharmacists needed to be covered by someone isn't it.

and frankly, the stress in the profession is huge, many couldn't stand it as well. so plenty of pharmacist, earn enough of money, take a year off or so. well, i have met pharmacists that only work 6 months a year. half of a year, they went to thailand or europe for holiday in the winter / summer.

hospital pharmacist is usually called the clinical pharmacist.

and educational pharmacist is people that involved in academia. an option but small portion.

the three that i mentioned is route that you can go into. you can be an educational pharmacist in community, hospital or industrial, so as clinical, some pharmacist in community is really clinical, and industrial esp. those involved in R&D, pharmacology, clinical trials and safety testing.

in US, they are called PharmD, doctorate in Pharmacy.

it is not as direct as that. he has to extend the master research to another 2 years if he perform well his master program. basically it is like upgrade, but you still have to further study, just that you dont have to go all over the applications process and start over a phd year, but straight away continue from where he is now towards a phd degree.

Aus offer to BPharm for basic and Master of Pharm in Aus is postgraduate study, rather than integrated like the UK and europe.

definitely not MSc to PhD in pharmacy, but PhD in PhD in Science is possible. just like most taking MPhil in engineering as start but have the chance to further get to PhD in engineering straightaway.