mrs shahida

[Fleegle]

Hear Hear, Nik...I think we all agree that repetitive posts like these are becoming extremely tiresome.... PLEASE SEARCH THE FORUM FIRST BEFORE YOU POST PEOPLE......

Fleegle.

[shan]

If you compare your new post with the earlier which I responded to, you will realise that you are just emphasizing my point. If your check my post again you will realise at no point did I make any indication on OSPAP being easy. My point is that you can not cover ‘‘all’’ the modules in 3rd and 4th yr of Mpharm in 9 months and this as been confirmed in your new post. Though, you will have to do a lot with those students but you will never be expected to do ‘’all’’ same modules as them. Which is reasonable as you are already a pharmacy graduate and practising and most of these modules you are believe to be familiar with, so what OSPAP is meant for is reinforcing the knowledge that you already posses as a pharmacy graduate and introduce you pharmacy practice in the UK.
Shan, if anything I understand you position may be more than most people on this forum. I came to the UK 8 years ago, put myself through College and School of pharmacy as an international student, all of which I funded with money I got doing night and weekend security guard. So my dear, I know what you are talking about.
Am not trying to take any of your achievements away from you, Nobody can even if they try, I just believe All the module and final research project from those last two years in Mpharm in addition to the essentials of the OSPAP cant be done in 9 months for a student that a never done it before.
Hope this clears things up and no hard fellings . Good luck.

You look a little softer and showing some respect to the term OSPAP. Please maintain the same attittude and people may benefit from your advice. I don't think you have interpreted my post in the right sense. But, first I will refer you back to your original post and highlight in bold and red what you said about OSPAP and then explain how wrong you are.

I thought somebody should have put an end to the misconception on this forum that the OSPAP is equivalent to the last two years of an Mpharm program. The OSPAP is nothing like the Mpharm it is just design to bring oversea pharmacist up to speed about how pharmaceutical care is run in the UK. Not to degrade you intelligence but trust me you can never ever complete the last two years of an Mpharm program in nine months. So get over the idea that you have done in two semesters what the Mpharm or the old Bpharm graduates do in two years. All you have done OSPAP is to make sure patient safety is further is guaranteed when in your care, you know, so that you would not give paracetamol to patient complaining of stomach ache.

Now, have you anywhere in the post, mentioned that an OSPAP is atleast somewhere close to MPHARM as you are claiming now ?????? NO

When I said I have done almost all the modules along with the 3rd and 4th year MPHARMs, that is what I did and the proof for that is my assessment and examinations being conducted and graded ALONG WITH those of the MPHARMs and not seperately. All the projects/ seminars/ OSCEs etc were same for both MPHARMs & OSPAPs.

For your kind information, please do visit the RPSGB website for more research on OSPAP, before you try to give any more advice on OSPAP, and you will find in black and white that the whole purpose of the OSPAP is to bring the overseas pharmacists upto the level of UK MPHARM and thus the course is integrated with the curriculum of 3rd and 4th year MPHARM along with some extra modules which cover mostly the recent developments in different fields of pharmaceutical sciences and practice.

Every person has some or the other weak point. Please do not take offence, but I am still unable to digest the thought that you are in this country for the past 8 years (i dont know if you are already working as a pharmacist) and your english is still not even close to a band 5 of IELTS and you are trying to mislead people on things you are not fully aware of. I am not even sure if any patient has ever had any interaction with you, let alone taking paracetamol for stomach ache.

Anyway, this is a public forum and everyone has their right to express their views. As a fellow pharmacist colleague, my advice or suggestion to all including me is never stop learning, admit your mistake, improve self before criticising others and always have facts and figures right before attempting to comment on any topic and never speculate. Never belive in what you only see or hear unless you do some research and find the real truth. We are in a serious business with a professional body always round the corner to catch you for the silliest mistake.

For your info, I did learn something today by visiting this thread and going through your posts. I better not mention what I learnt.

Cheers.

Shan

pssst: I do lot of mistakes myself. just like editing this post 3 times for spelling mistakes

[rainbow121]

Hi guys. Feels odd to write on this forum again but I couldnt help myself after reading above posts from bodmann and shan. well i am an ospap student as well and I completely agree with Shan. lemme make one thing clear, if anyone think that Uk has higher standard of education than third world countries then they r completely misled and mistaken. I have studied in another UK university as well and to be honest I couldnt find any difference in quality of education. Legislation and patient care is an integral part of OSPAP nevertheless OSPAP also includes advance pharmaceutics and lab based experiments as well.

So please enlighten me once again, any Uk graduate in pharmacy thinks that people from overseas are not upto the standard, probably because OSPAP's have three chambers of heart in their countries or OSPAPS assume there are three chambers of heart so that is why they have to go through essentials of physiology once again and in their country B-blocker is given to treat some different condition other than BP and arrhythmias? Mind you, I am studying with UK undergraduate students and most of them follow guidelines only which they normally copy and paste from NICE or SIGN websites without knowing the actual depth of those guidelines and exact pharmacology of the drug and pathophysiology of the condition to treat a patient. I have encountered many students who dont even know actual mechanism of beta blockers. all they know about beta blockers is they block beta receptors and thats it. Another classic example, someone asked a final year student recently what happens in benign prostrate hyperplasia, her reply was blockage of PENIS GLAND. (maybe i should have expected that reply from an OSPAP student..??). they know what is hypokalemia but they dont know what does hypokalemia do in a human body does. I never said that I am a genius but I can remember when I was doing my undergraduate in Pharmacy in my home country, most of the students knew more than that plus other stuff like diagnostic tools like how to read an ECG. I have yet to see one undergraduate pharmacy student in UK who knows what does an inverted or an absent P wave in ECG stands for (pretty basic thing in my country at undergraduate level)

My point is we all read ''SAME BASICS'' about physiology and pharmacology plus other subjects like pharmaceutics in OSPAP which we have done ages ago without any difference in quality. Me and Shan and my other OSPAP colleagues found UK legislation and pharmaceutical care (because of UK guidelines) additional but that doesnt mean we know nothing about physiology and pharmacology or basic principles of pharmaceutics like drug delivery and formulation which is like additional burden of doing same thing which we have already done in our undergraduate degree. Would you like to go and do basic Maths and English grammer again if you want to move to Australia, USA or canada because they might think you are not upto their standards. Try giving IELTS.

My friends, OSPAP is not just legislation and care plan. Quite a few courses have been condensed in a short period of 9 months time (that 9 months period includes holidays as well). I appreciate the fact that undergraduates do projects as well but they dont have to do additional modules for OSPAP which are equally demanding and time consuming.

My overall point behind that post was not to insult any educational system or student but to tell that I dont think UK graduates are any better or superior than OSPAPS in anyway (based on my experience with UK undergraduates).

[Fleegle]

Point taken.

[shani101]

I am afraid you are not exempt from ielts. I have my couple of overseas pharmacist friends who are also British and doing their IELTS.

[johnep]

All this will be water under the bridge when the shortage of pharmacists becomes a surplus. You will hear Mr Browns's war cry 'British jobs for British workers' more frequently.
johnep