BPharm and MPharm are the same if you are in Malaysia. MPharm is treated as BPharm.

But what you'll learn during the course is what differentiate you between a bachelor degree holder and a master degree holder. After all, in UK, MPharm is treated no different from any Master degree, as you are taught in Master level in your final year.

not really.

in malaysia, it is still a master degree.

but people assume they are the same as BPharm because of the duration of study. and it is treated no different from BPharm in term of starting a job. you still have to go through 4 years of civil service.

like i said many times, the main difference would be the experiences being taught in Master level or just Degree level.

it is simple, you wouldn't want to promise someone that this MIRACLE drug will cure him/her for sure, but ended up killing the patient because of it side-effects/narrow therapeutic index or whatsoever that the patient die because of something else/natural cause, and their family comes back to you with all the blame and legal actions.

medicines / healthcare professional, you are dealing with people life. in the end of the day, just make sure your back is covered. despite what benefits you have tried for the patient, they MAY come back and back-fire at you if something goes wrong.

This post has been edited by youngkies: Jul 11 2009, 11:22 AM

there is no 100% effective drug in this world. and all of it come with side-effects too.

research give us hopes, and hope keep us going. if no one put the possibility up, no one will know about it, no one will take note of it, no one will carry on doing research on it, no one will discover something else that can be beneficial, and hence nothing is made.

give it a shot, it is not always up to the patient to decide. it is up to the professionals known as doctor. doctor is the one that weigh between risk and benefits.

if it was me, i won't sell it either. in UK, pharmacist can only prescribe trimethoprim for UTI and azithromycin for chlamydia, under specific specification as pharmacy services.

it is up to the doctor to diagnose and prescribe treatment for most bacterial infections, including ear infections. pharmacist in UK are allowed to sell acetic acid ear drops for outer ear infection, but anything beyond that (inner/middle ear canal infection), hearing loss, pain etc, referral to doctor is necessary for full assessment/diagnosis. i believe, none of the pharmacy do have an otoscope anyway.

in regards to selling medicines she used before, it is not appropriate either. if anyone can self medicate themselves, what is the point for doctor to go the uni for 5 years and numerous years of gaining experience. everyone can just google up their symptoms and buy the medicine from the grocery. i'm afraid we are not in that golden age yet.

who get the blame if self medicate went wrong? who will held responsibility if resistant to antibiotic developed due to misuse, if everyone can just go and buy antibiotic of their own choice.

also, pill? lol, he doesn't even have an idea what is the difference between pill and tablet. i have never seen any antibiotic comes in pill form anymore.

and his talk about studying 4 years vs. doctor 5 years? it doesnt matter. it is the content of study that matters. engineering take 4 years in malaysia too, does that means engineering can do architecture works too?

so as owning a pharmacy doesnt means they are entrepreneur either. it is about how you bringing the business forward. i have seen owners of pharmacies that are not happy work in their own pharmacy for full time, just because they cant deal with the stress of managing the pharmacy, but also being money-minded for every seconds.

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Added on July 30, 2009, 3:09 amno.. cardiff + taylor. its better be good then. else it is so going to drag down cardiff reputation. btw, cardiff, it is a really good place to study.

This post has been edited by youngkies: Jul 30 2009, 03:09 AM

well it is not always about legality in sales of medicine. I will not sell/give out any medicines if I am not happy with the transaction. I wont sell anything just because the customer/patient wanted it. I do it only when I am convinced that the thing I sold will bring benefit than something bad, used within the medicines licensed indication and intention.

e.g. some patient can come in and say they want co-codamol. upon some questioning, if I have doubt that he/she might not need it or probably abuse it or probably misuse it, I won't sell it, despite it is a so common stuff over the counter. Because if anything bad happened, next thing you know is, you will be questioned by plenty of authorities or get sued for negligence.

sales of medicines over the counter / dispensing, customer has no right for whatever they want, it is the pharmacist's right and judgement to hand out the medicine. the only thing to balance their right of obtaining a medicine, is pharmacist owes patient duty of care.

you wont learn this kind of ethical dilemma until you have really work as a pharmacist.

the same as dispensing, if you are not happy to dispense something according to doctor direction/prescription (inappropriate dose, interactions, S/E etc), you have the right to not dispense it too. if there is something wrong, and you failed to notice it or just dispense it because you thought doctor is always right, in the end, you share 50-50 liability with the prescribing doctor for negligence too.

they are called provisional registered pharmacist (PRP) in msia instead of pre-reg as in UK.

in the range of 3.8k, +1k if you are west malaysian working in east malaysia.

community pharmacist - pharmacist that work in community setting.

hospital pharmacist - self-explanatory

industrial pharmacist - pharmacist that work in drug manufacturing site.

academia pharmacist - post-research student, lecturer

also pharmacist that work across board e.g. regulatory pharmacist, administration pharmacist etc etc.

all can be profitable depends on which level you get into.

the differences are huge.

MSc in pharmacy, no. MPharm, yes as you start as a new second degree.

it is simple. physician prescribes and pharmacist dispenses.

physician treats while pharmacist supplies and nurse to administer.

as long as you have the registration as pharmacist in UK, job is not hard to come by whatever race you are. beside, a lot of companies do depends on overseas pharmacist to get the job done, as some local british pharmacist are just laid back.

and its not about money all the time. I do see a lot of people going back even after just a year of working/training in uk due to stress and boring life in here.

compounding has become less common practice, even in pharmaceutical company, unless you are in R&D department, academia or work as compounding pharmacist in specials manufacturers. even in hospital, compounding is usually limited to parental administration.


my advice is, get working experience or summer placement with big companies in uk, that will also leads you to a place for pre-registration even before your graduation. pass the pre-reg year, get the registration and there you go, plenty of jobs still. but i have to pre-warn you, jobs are plentiful, but good places to work in are hard to come by in community sector.

yes I am pharmacist in uk, and it can get quite cold sometime, below 0 for 1-2 weeks at most, varies on area you live in.

pharmacology is not the exact equivalent of pharmacy. pharmacy does include pharmacology to an extent, but not vice versa. pharmacology is the study of drug on body, but pharmacy is everything to do with drug, including law and pharmacy practice.

to answer to your previous questions. Yes 2+2 allows you to practice as pre-reg in uk after graduation, and upon passing the pre-reg year, you can register as pharmacist in uk.

MPharm is not equivalent to Honours degree as well.

yes, despite whatever qualification you have from any part of the world, once you get back to malaysia, you work for at least 3 years of civil service.

MPharm is after all a Master degree but Honours is classification of usually Bachelor degree or some Master degree (e.g. 2:1 Hons, 2:2 Hons of a BPharm or MPharm).

I enjoyed being a pharmacist. End of the everyday, I have given plenty of advices from minor illness and treatment to specific advice of medication information, made sure hundreds of my customers receive their medication at right strength and right dose, of course right medication, and ensured hundreds of medication prescribed being dispensed with no margin for mistaken.

What more, the pay is good, way above the average pay, feed myself and still extra to spend after savings.

What I don't enjoy most, stressful most of the time due to multitasking, lack of staff, and lack of support from the managers, who knows only about targets targets and targets.

if u coming to UK for pharmacy course, go for a better university when you are paying about the same for a reputable and so-so uni.

if you want to do the course in a so-so uni, go for sunderland, bradford, portsmouth or aston university instead.

pharmacy course in liverpool, brilliant, but pharmacy in liverpool john moores, is almost unheard of.

reputable universities in pharmacy are like, London School of Pharmacy, Nottingham, Cardiff, Bath, Manchester, Liverpool, Strathclyde.

it does actually. in terms of how does the qualification weigh in malaysia, they put it the same, but what you actually learn, they are different.