Bridge Course

Just as the Pharmacy Council of India (PCI) started the preliminary work for implementing the bridge course, B Pharm Practice, by accepting applications from universities and colleges, some of the academic institutions and varsities are showing a bad face towards the two-year evening course targeting the working pharmacy diploma holding community.

With a good intention to upgrade the knowledge and standard of the pharmacists working in the hospital and community pharmacies, from where the poor people in the country are availing most of their medications, the PCI had launched the bridge course and had issued a Gazette notification in January last year in this regard. According to academic experts who took pains in designing the course, there are some conventional universities which are not aware of the things and such universities are mostly opposing the new course.

The first opposition came from the Kerala University of Health Sciences (KUHS) which said the course cannot be recognized and hence approval cannot be given to its constituent colleges to conduct the course. The VC of the KUHS was very adamant while responding to Pharmabiz about the course. He said a two-year evening course like B Pharm Practice cannot be equated with the regular B Pharm course. According to him, the course is an unwanted one.

When contacted the Pharmacy College at the Tamil Nadu MGR Medical University, Dr. D. Chamundeswary, the principal, said the college is not at all interested to take up the bridge course which is designed evening classes on working days and day time classes on holidays. According to the principal, the college has conducted a feasibility study about the course and it was found that students will come only for one or two batches, afterwards the course will have to be wound up. She said the college is not at all interested to run the course.

While speaking to Dr. G. Parthasarathy, principal of JSS College of Pharmacy affiliated to JSS University in Mysore, he said the college has applied for approval from the PCI to conduct the course. PCI will soon conduct the inspection at the college and the course is likely to be started there in the next academic year. The president of the PCI is the vice-chancellor of the JSS University.

To another question, Dr. Parthasarathy said the course is yet to kick off in any institution in India so far, PCI is doing the preliminary work.

Responding to the opposition and refusal shown by certain universities, Dr. Somashekharan Khadabadi, principal of the government college of pharmacy at Amravati in Maharashtra, said only those universities which are following conservative policies are showing a bad face to the course. He said even some academicians with pharmacy background are also opposing the course because of their ignorance about the course. He said if any defect is found in the beginning, it can be corrected and take the course forward for the goodness of the society. He further said the University of Amravati denied approval to the course at his college.

In respect to the standard of the bridge course, Prof. Dr. Chinnaswami, executive committee member of the PCI, said the Council has started the course in order to equate the standard and status of the community and hospital pharmacists in the country. According to him, the course is already notified in the gazette and the universities have the right to conduct it or not.

Dr. T. Ilango, Registrar of Tamil Nadu Pharmacy Council, said it is the duty of the PCI to implement the course through various institutions in the state and all support from the Council side will be given to the colleges coming forward to conduct the course.