South Australian Science Council

Transcription

Hi I'm Joanne I'm a third year Pharmacy student at the University of South Australia This is the model pharmacy at the University of South Australia. They have everything that a community pharmacy or a hospital pharmacy will have. They have all these raw ingredients, raw materials, they've got equipment that's neccessary for practicals We do use a dispensing program as well in the pharmacy It's good to learn. The most fun thing in this degree would be the practicals, because we get to make all sorts of stuff. The thing that appealed to me most was making the creams because it can go well or if you don't make it properly, it cracks and that's not a good thing, but it was fun anyway to make it because it's like cooking and cooking's fun. It's like the recipe, the formula, and you learn what each ingredient is for. Then you stir it, put it on the water bath heat it for a bit, let it cool, mix it again and you've got your product. So that was a fun part for me but overall I just enjoyed the pracs, because we did quite a bit of pracs it wasn't just theory. It's not just sitting in lectures, listening to the lecturers, but it was more going out learning your stuff, hands on things. From third year onwards we are required to go on placements. Could be hospital pharmacy placements or community pharmacy. The general idea for the placement this year is to introduce ourselves to hospital pharmacy. It's different from the community pharmacy where, in community pharmacy you have more customer interaction, whereas at the hospital, sometimes it might not be direct. So the pharmacist at the hospital, they generally help the doctors when the doctors are writing prescriptions, whether the medications are appropriate for the patients condition. The experience gained from work experience and placement is good because it makes the transition between being a student to a pharmacist easier. I like to learn and at uni, one of the graduate qualities is continuous learning and at uni it helps you to do that because everything you learn has a further section to it that you can understand more. So, if you've got time, you can just choose to learn and I like doing that. I think a prospective student for Pharmacy should enjoy talking to people and also have an interest in chemistry and maybe biology. I think chemistry and maths, those two subjects that I did, helped me the most when I did my degree because we do chemistry in first year and you go through the basic stuff. Once you understand that then you can move on to subjects like pharmaceutics where you need to learn about some things like stability and all the complicated issues which is harder to understand unless you've got a good basic foundation. I love being in university because it's very free you just get to do anything you want. I mean, you've got a timetable but you just make your own choices at uni.