January 10, 2017

IPSF Press Release

On November 7th and 8th of 2016, leaders in pharmacy and pharmaceutical sciences education met
in Nanjing, China to discuss and adopt a series of statements designed to create a global vision for
pharmacy education and the development of the workforce. These statements include three major
sets of documents: Global Vision for Education and Workforce, Pharmaceutical Workforce
Development Goals (WDGs), and Nanjing Statements on Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences
Education. These documents outline goals in various areas of education, including Academic
Capacity, Quality Assurance, Competency Development, and Leadership Development. Moving
forward, it should be the goal of every school of pharmacy to make changes to meet these criteria,
with the goal of producing better pharmacists and pharmaceutical scientists.
IPSF believes that pharmacy students should have an active role in their education. To that end, IPSF
provided extensive feedback to FIPEd, based on the input from its members, on the statements that
were voted on and adopted at this conference. Of the 55 approved statements, many had been
revised to reflect IPSF comments. These include: 1.5, 4.6, 5.4, 6.6, 6.8, 6.12, 6.14, 7.6, 7.10, 8.3,
with 4.6, 6.14, 7.10, and 8.3 being directly quoted from the IPSF submission to FIP. These statements
are:
Schools should prepare students to be future mentors, supervisors, preceptors, and leaders. This
includes promoting a culture of peer support and knowledge sharing amongst students and
encouraging students to mentor younger students.
The school should support and promote the academic staff, preceptors, students, and
administrators to engage in professional activities with other health sectors.
Quality improvement should always include a clear process for handling student
concerns/issues/complaints that is transparent so that students are informed of the progress and
outcome of any concern that is raised
Promotion of CPD (Continuing Professional Development) should begin with students at the start
of their education.
In other words, student voices were heard in the creation of these global standards. Now is the time
to begin advocating for the changes students want to see at their local schools based on the
statements that were adopted by the global pharmaceutical education leaders. We hope to inform
and involve students in this process via social media campaigns and workshops. IPSF also hopes to
continue to provide feedback on these statements so that they may be revised to more accurately
reflect the evolving needs and desires of students.
For further information, please contact: ipsf@ipsf.org