Master of Science in Pharmaceutical Care
The Master in Pharmaceutical Care – Pharmacist trains you to become a drug expert and pharmaceutical scientist. The emphasis is on promoting and monitoring the efficient and safe use of medicines in health care.
What
The faculty organizes two “domain” Master’s degrees, namely the Master in Pharmaceutical Care and the Master in Drug Development. Both degrees lead to the professional title of pharmacist and therefore include the legally required work placement period of 26 weeks. The Master of Pharmaceutical Care (2 years) builds on the academic Bachelor’s degree (3 years) in Pharmaceutical Sciences. In the Master’s programme in Pharmaceutical Care, the emphasis is on the social role of the pharmacist as a scientifically trained medical expert in patient care, with special attention to promoting and monitoring the effective, safe and cost-efficient use of medicines. The study programme prepares you well for a role as a pharmaceutical expert in health care, for example, in a pharmacy, or with the government, a health insurance fund, a scientific institution, the pharmaceutical inspectorate, the pharmaceutical industry, etc. You can move on to the advanced Master’s programmes in Hospital Pharmacy, Clinical Biology, Industrial Pharmacy or the doctorate.
For whom
The admission requirements vary. Depending on your prior education, you are either able to enrol directly, or there are additional requirements.
Structure
In both Master’s years, scientific pharmaceutical education takes centre stage, with a strong focus on practice-based scientific knowledge. The curriculum aims at integrating pharmaceutical knowledge and skills and is a mixture of pharmaceutical-technological, medical-biological, and specific pharmaceutical knowledge. In addition to a number of general course units shared with the Drug Development curriculum, the Pharmaceutical Care curriculum contains a number of specific compulsory course units. The first-year curriculum includes a Master’s dissertation that is based on experimental research conducted in a national or foreign research group. By means of elective courses, the second-year curriculum allows students to further orient their education depending on their interests or future prospects.
The pharmacy work placement period is scheduled for the second year. It is possible to undertake part of the work placement during the summer break following the first year. A number of ‘follow-up days’ are planned in which the practical experience is assessed and adjusted.
In addition to the (domain) Master’s programme described above, you can also choose a Master’s Programme in Teaching (in Dutch: Educatieve Master). More information about this can be found at www.ugent.be/educatievemaster.
Labour Market
The versatility of the study programme offers the graduate pharmacist a wide range of career opportunities. The study programme mainly prepares you for a role as a pharmaceutical expert in health care. The profession of retail pharmacist is the most obvious one, but many graduates also end up in hospitals and care institutions, with other actors in health care (such as the government, the health insurance funds, the pharmaceutical inspectorate, etc.), in scientific institutions or in education (both secondary education and university colleges).
Retail Pharmacy
The number of independent pharmacies is regulated by the Establishment Act of 1974. The positions of responsible pharmacist, deputy pharmacist or substitute pharmacist are all fully fledged and valuable forms of practicing the pharmacy profession. Even if you are not the owner of a pharmacy yourself, you can develop an exciting career within the retail pharmacy. There are several options:
- pharmacist-owners hold the professional title of pharmacist, and own their own pharmacy;
- responsible pharmacists hold the professional title of pharmacist, and work in a pharmacy owned by a third party. The latter can either be another pharmacist, a cooperation or a company;
- deputy pharmacists hold the professional title of pharmacist (in Dutch: titularis), and work for a managing or a supervising pharmacist;
- substitute pharmacists hold the professional title of pharmacist and stand in for a managing or deputy pharmacist for a specific period in time in case of (sick) leave. They do so either on a part-time or on a fulltime basis.
Care Institutions
Hospitals and other care institutions have an in-house pharmacy to cover their pharmaceutical needs. As hospital pharmacist you are responsible for the preparation and distribution of the medicines, and for the effective, safe and cost-efficient use of medicines within the healthcare institution. In order to obtain a Master’s degree in Hospital Pharmacy, you must take an additional specialization in the form of a three-year interuniversity advanced Master’s programme. You must also be registered on the list of recognized hospital pharmacists.
Other Possibilities
This broad programme offers a whole range of future career opportunities that cannot be described in a few sentences. Be sure to take a look at our career guide with a whole series of stories from former students at www.ugent.be/fw/nl/voor-toekomstige-studenten/carrieregids.pdf
Quality Assurance
At Ghent University, we strive to educate people who dare to think about the challenges of tomorrow. For that purpose, we provide education that is embedded in six strategic objectives: Think Broadly, Keep Researching, Cultivate Talent, Contribute, Extend Horizons, Opt for Quality.
Ghent University continuously focuses on quality assurance and quality culture. The Ghent University's quality assurance system offers information on each study programme’s unique selling points, and on its strengths and weaknesses with regard to quality assurance.
More information:
Unique Selling Points
- Scientific approach to pharmaceutical care: The emphasis of the study programme is on the social role of the pharmacist as a scientifically trained medical expert in patient care, with special attention to promoting and monitoring the effective, safe and cost-efficient use of medicines.
- Versatility of the study programme: Students are trained to be able to work with the different aspects of the use of medicines and health products in both practical and research terms. Product-related knowledge and competencies (such as pharmacological, toxicological and technical aspects of medicines) are thereby integrated with more social, patient-related and methodological aspects (such as patient communication and motivation, collaboration in care, affordability of care, methodology and interpretation of clinical studies).
- Embedding in the professional field: The work placement in the second Master’s curriculum is an important asset of our study programme. For a total of 26 weeks, the students work in a pharmacy and learn to function independently and in a team. In various course units, there is an important contribution from experts from the field.
- Tailor-made curriculum: The second Master’s curriculum leaves room for elective course units (Veterinary Pharmacy, Cosmetology, Drugs and Abuse, Phytotherapy, Parasitology and “Alternative Medicine, a Critical Approach”), which allows them to tailor their training to their own interests and future perspectives.
- Labour Market: The combination of a solid, multifaceted academic education with practical skills provides a wide range of career opportunities within the health sector and also provides access to advanced studies.
Strengths
- Integration of knowledge and skills: the curriculum integrates pharmaceutical knowledge and skills, and is a mixture of pharmaceutical-technological, medical-biological and specific pharmaceutical knowledge.
- Research: our lecturers’ research is internationally renowned. Choosing this programme, students opt for a strong research-based curriculum. During the work placement, all students participate in a research project in pharmaceutical care that is reported internationally.
- The anchoring of theory and practice takes place during the Master’s dissertation in the first Master’s year and the work placement in the second Master’s year. Under the expert guidance of academics and pharmacists, our students are stimulated to think in a problem-solving way. The programme also offers high-quality Erasmus work placements.
- Enthusiastic and motivated teaching staff: The team of lecturers, assistants and supervisors has great and diverse expertise, is very committed and at the same time, very approachable to the students.
- Strong input from the professional field: Education, research and practice are integrated into the programme, on the one hand by the lecturers and experts from the various professional field domains, and on the other, by embedding students in the field.
Challenges
- Study load: The study programme is perceived as heavy by the students. The Programme Committee will continue to monitor this study load.
- Assessment and (interim) feedback: In its competency-oriented education, the study programme wants to focus more on appropriate feedback during evaluations (exams, master’s dissertation, etc.). To this end, it will further develop a feedback culture and provide students with even better information and encouragement to use the provided feedback options.
- Assistant teaching staff: Professors are strongly involved in education policy, but the attention for temporary teaching staff will be intensified further.
This study programme is accredited by the Accreditation Organization of the Netherlands and Flanders (Dutch: NVAO). Accreditation was extended following the positive outcome of the institutional review in 2022. Programme quality was validated by a quality review, i.e. a screening of the Education Monitor by the Education Quality Board. The Quality Assurance Resolution (in Dutch) can be found here.
This information was last updated on 01/02/2023.
In case of questions or suggestions with regard to the publicly available information, please contact the study programme.