The Present Situation,Problems and Countermeasures of Continuing Education for Licensed Pharmacists

Shen Yuan,Tian Lijuan＊

(1.School of Business Administration,Shenyang Pharmaceutical University,Shenyang 110016,China;2.Beijing Brilliance Biotech Co.,Ltd.,Beijing 100124,China)

Abstract Objective To innovate the mode and method of continuing education management for licensed pharmacists.Methods The importance of continuing education for licensed pharmacists was analyzed to find problems and countermeasures by means of literature research.Results and Conclusion There are such problems in the current continuing education of licensed pharmacists as lack of strong policy and regulation support,emphasis on theory and the lack of practical training,lack of systematic and effective supervision.The author analyzed the above problems and put forward some suggestions for them.To strengthen the continuing education of licensed pharmacists,it is necessary to improve relevant laws and regulations,enhance the supervision and management of continuing education of licensed pharmacists,improve the content of continuing education of licensed pharmacists and increase practical training.

Keywords:licensed pharmacist; continuing education; management mode

Since the introduction of licensed pharmacist qualification system in 1994,the number of licensed pharmacists has been growing.By the end of December 2018,a total of 1.03 million people had passed the qualification examination for licensed pharmacists,and the registered number of licensed pharmacists was 468 019[1].Now,the average number of licensed pharmacists per 10 000 people in China is 3.6,but compared with the number of 10 to 20 licensed pharmacists per 10 000 people in the developed countries,the gap of licensed pharmacists is large.Besides,the knowledge structure is not perfect because their professional quality is not high.It is difficult to provide professional and effective pharmaceutical care for the public.Therefore,it is particularly important to strengthen the continuing education of licensed pharmacists.

At present,with the increasing number of licensed pharmacists,the scope and concept of licensed pharmacists are changing as well,which has higher requirements for the mode,form,and content of continuing education for licensed pharmacists.At this stage,there are still some problems in the continuing education of licensed pharmacists in China,which need targeted improvement.

1 The importance of strengthening the continuing education for licensed pharmacists

Licensed pharmacists are qualified pharmaceutical technicians who have obtained the Professional Qualification Certificate of Practicing Pharmacists of the People’s Republic of China through the unified national examination and have registered in pharmaceutical production,operation,use,and other institutions[2].With the development of social economy,the change and update of disease spectrum,the change of pharmaceutical care model and the deepening reform of medical and health system,the public increase their demand for licensed pharmacists and their pharmaceutical care day by day.Continuing education for licensed pharmacists can help them maintain good professional ethics to provide pharmacy services for patients.The improvement of their competence and professional skill will ensure the safety,effectiveness and economy of drug use for the public.

2 The present situation of continuing education for licensed pharmacists

On July 30,2015,the Chinese Pharmacists Association formulated and issued the “Trial Measures for the Management of Continuing Education of Licensed Pharmacists” and the “Thirteenth Five-Year Plan for the Development of Continuing Education of Licensed Pharmacists”.In order to implement the above measures and plans,the Chinese Pharmacists Association issued the “Guideline for the Continuing Education of Licensed Pharmacists” on January 26,2016,starting to carry out model online continuing education throughout the country.The continuing education for licensed pharmacists is managed by the Chinese Pharmacists Association and the Provincial Pharmacists Association.China has also set up a Working Committee of Continuing Education for Licensed Pharmacists to assist Chinese Pharmacists Association in completing the relevant work.

At present,the main contents of continuing education for licensed pharmacists in China include pharmaceutical management and regulations,pharmacists’ professional ethics,pharmacy professional knowledge and skills,etc.The course is divided into compulsory,optional and self-study.The forms of education include short-term face-toface education,online education and correspondence education.But now,we only have two sorts,one is the face-to-face education and the other is online education.The continuing education for licensed pharmacists is based on the credit system.The licensed pharmacists should earn no less than 15 credits each year,including no less than 10 points for the compulsory and elective courses.Since there is no uniform training program for continuing education of licensed pharmacists in China now,we do not have unified management of continuing education and training institutions.The administrative departments of continuing education vary from province to province.The licensed pharmacists’ associations shall be responsible for the continuing education if there are some established ones in provinces,while in other provinces where Licensed Pharmacist Associations have not been established,such as Liaoning,Guizhou,Qinghai,Tibet and Ningxia,the provincial food and drug administration departments and pharmaceutical societies will be in charge of the continuing education.Due to the different levels of economic development and management of continuing education institutions in different provinces,there is a large gap in teacher allocation and teaching method of licensed pharmacist training institutions.

3 Problems in continuing education for licensed pharmacists

3.1 Lacking effective legal and regulatory support

China’s licensed pharmacist system started late with little legal effect.The Provisional Regulations on the Qualification System of Licensed Pharmacists have been implemented since 1994.Besides,the Provisions on the Vocational Qualification System for Licensed Pharmacists were formulated and issued by the State Administration of Drug Administration and the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security in 2019.Both documents are departmental rules with lower legal effect.

There is a big gap between China and the developed countries such as USA,Britain and Japan in the legislation of licensed pharmacists.We can take the United States as an example.In 1869,the United States promulgated the Model State Pharmacy Act and the state pharmacy acts,which are updated in August every year and they have been improved gradually[3].The relevant documents on the continuing education for licensed pharmacists in China were all issued by Chinese Pharmacists Association,which belongs to non-governmental organizations.Most of the documents issued by the association are regulatory documents with low legal effect.Although the government has already started the legislation work of the pharmacists,it has only published the draft for soliciting opinions,and the formal implementation of the law is still far away.The limited policies and regulations for continuing education of licensed pharmacists,coupled with the lack of effective laws and regulatory support,have led to the low status of licensed pharmacists.In addition,the lack of attention to continuing education by all fields of the society cannot guarantee the rights and obligations of continuing education for licensed pharmacists.

3.2 The contents stress on theory and deviate from practice

By the end of February 2017,the academic qualifications of licensed pharmacists were as follows.The number of graduate students was 6 755,the number of undergraduate students was 102 183,the number of junior college students was 125 644,and the number of technical secondary school students was 116 088.A total of 68.9% of licensed pharmacists did not get a bachelor’s degree.The distribution of licensed pharmacists’ majors was like this,the number of pharmacy major was 126 582,in traditional Chinese medicine was 54 955,67 775 were in medical specialty,and 75 679 were in other majors.Besides,the non-pharmaceuticals accounted for 48.2%[4].From the above data,it can be seen that the degree below bachelor’s degree and non-pharmacy major account for a large proportion.Therefore,the professional quality of licensed pharmacists is relatively weak.It is urgent to improve their practical skills through continuing education.According to the results of the questionnaire survey conducted by Yang Shi and Wang Shiyu on the problems existing in the continuing education of licensed pharmacists in China,one third of the students reported that the content of continuing education was quite different from the actual work[5].The specific manifestations are as follows.(1)Currently,licensed pharmacists work in various aspects of the pharmaceutical industry such as production,management and use.Licensed pharmacists in different fields learn the same content under the circumstance of limited resource choices,which is obviously lack of pertinence and practicability.(2) The theoretical knowledge of licensed pharmacist accounts for a large proportion,and it means the curriculum is not closely related to practical work.Besides,the knowledge is not timely updated,which fails to meet the needs of some highlevel students for further study.(3) Pharmacy is a special discipline with a wide range of knowledge,multiple interdisciplinary subjects and high requirements for clinical practice.However,there are not practical courses in continuing education,which is not conducive to improving the competence of licensed pharmacists.

3.3 Lacking systematic and effective supervision

Nowadays,most licensed pharmacists choose online education.Online education has many advantages and provides more convenience for licensed pharmacists to gain knowledge.Meanwhile,online education has some disadvantages.For example,the answers to continuing education assessment questions are readily available.Therefore,some students hire others to get the answers.it means the commercialization model of online learning shows that there are regulatory loopholes in continuing education for licensed pharmacists.Due to the lack of effective supervision by provincial Pharmacist Associations and relevant departments of food and drug administration in some provinces and cities,the continuing education of licensed pharmacists tends to be formalized and fails to achieve the expected results.

4 Suggestions on strengthening the management of continuing education for licensed pharmacists

4.1 Accelerating the construction of a supervision and regulation system for licensed pharmacists

The Pharmacists Law should be formulated and issued as soon as possible.The status and recognition of licensed pharmacists abroad are very high because they are supported and guaranteed by the legal system.China should promulgate Pharmacists Law as soon as possible to clarify the requirements for the continuing education of licensed pharmacists at the legal level.

In May 2017,the national health and family planning commission released Pharmacists Law (draft for comments).Its chapter 3,article 24 states:“the rights of pharmacists during their practice include professional training and continuing medical and pharmaceutical education.” Therefore,licensed pharmacists not only have the right but also the obligation to receive continuing education.It is suggested to increase the obligation clause in the Pharmacists Law that they must receive continuing education regularly in their practice.In addition,the annual continuing education of licensed pharmacists shall be regarded as an important part of licensed pharmacists’ registration,professional title assessment and workplace supervision and inspection.

At the same time,CFDA and Chinese Pharmacists Association should strengthen supervision over the problems in the continuing education for licensed pharmacists,and relevant regulations and documents should be timely issued to form a regulatory system for the management of licensed pharmacists.This can ensure the smooth and highquality development of continuing education for licensed pharmacists.

4.2 Improving the content of continuing education for licensed pharmacists

4.2.1 Teaching according to the needs of students

At present,licensed pharmacists have different academic qualifications,specialty and scope of practice.In this case,it is obviously inappropriate to give unified teaching and assessment to all licensed pharmacists.Therefore,it is necessary to set up different continuing education courses for licensed pharmacists according to their educational backgrounds,specialties and work fields.Teaching and differentiated assessment should be conducted according to the needs of licensed pharmacists.For example,according to the different educational and professional backgrounds of licensed pharmacists,they must complete a certain number of relevant courses every year.For licensed pharmacists without a bachelor’s degree and those with a non-pharmaceutical major,the credits obtained each year should be increased to 18 points.Students should increase their learning of weak courses according to their professional knowledge.This can gradually improve the level of professional technology.For licensed pharmacists with high academic qualifications,they should not only pay attention to pharmaceutical knowledge involved in their work,but also focus on excellent courses related to the scientific frontier,clinical practice,communication skills and other aspects in the pharmaceutical field.This will help them meet their professional quality improvement needs and highlight the practicality and advancement of continuing education.

4.2.2 Adding practical courses

Compared with the courses in the developed countries,the practice content of continuing education for licensed pharmacists in China is inadequate and the time is short.Some provinces and cities do not even have this content.In the United States,the admission examination and continuing education of licensed pharmacists both focus on the application of clinical practice[6].It is suggested that the same attention should be paid to cultivating the practical ability of licensed pharmacists in China as well.At the same time,in order to achieve the goal of “linkage of the three types of doctors”,it is suggested to increase the proportion of continuing education practice courses for licensed pharmacists to 50%.For example,a large number of famous expert lectures,face to face teaching and students’ assessment should focus on cases.Simulated experiments and pharmaceutical care,and the organization of experience sharing among pharmaceutical enterprises should be offered.In terms of training materials,domestic clinical pharmacy experts and scholars with rich theoretical and practical experience can be invited to compile them.Some qualified large-scale chain social pharmacies should be encouraged to participate in the formulation of standards of practice bases and more practice bases can be built for licensed pharmacists to practice.In addition to participating in the online and offline training organized by the association,social pharmacy is also encouraged to carry out various forms of training on a regular basis,such as weekly or monthly training,group meetings,and sharing on the corporate public platform.The training content can vary flexibly according to students’ needs,including the sharing of new policy interpretation,chronic disease care and management,doctor-patient communication skills,and the sharing of special cases.Medical talents can be cultivated according to the needs of the industry.Meanwhile,the way to train professional licensed pharmacists should be explored so as to improve the ability of licensed pharmacists in all aspects.

4.3 Strengthening the supervision and management of continuing education for licensed pharmacists

The continuing education for licensed pharmacists is now managed by the Chinese Pharmacists Association and the provincial Pharmacist Associations.There is not a strict supervision system for continuing education from the central government to the local government.As a result,the implementation and supervision of training education at the local level are still unsatisfactory.The China Licensed Pharmacist Association should strengthen the top-level design of the system for licensed pharmacists and constantly improve the relevant provisions of continuing education.The provincial food and drug administration,in conjunction with the provincial Pharmacist Associations,shall adopt a dynamic monitoring approach to each stage of the continuing education of licensed pharmacists.For instance,information management of identity recognition should be implemented for the continuing education for licensed pharmacists.Besides,fingerprint identification should be adopted to sign in for face-toface teaching and face recognition should be adopted for online continuing education which can prevent credit fraud.At the same time,moral education,honesty education and crisis consciousness education for licensed pharmacists should also be strengthened.Licensed pharmacists should have the awareness to accept continuing education and abide by ethics.In addition,provincial Pharmacist Associations should also evaluate the effect of continuing education every year so that they can adjust and improve the continuing education work in the next year according to the evaluation results.It will better meet students’learning requirements and improve the quality of continuing education.

5 Conclusions

Licensed pharmacist is an indispensable professional team in the field of medicine in China.Continuing education for licensed pharmacists is a strong guarantee for licensed pharmacists to maintain their professional quality and ability.It is imperative to establish a perfect management system of continuing education for licensed pharmacists.Pharmacists’ associations and working committees at all levels should work together to improve the management mode of licensed pharmacists’ continuing education.The content of continuing education should be enriched and the practical training of licensed pharmacists should be increased as well.Last,the supervision and management of continuing education must be strengthened to provide more favorable conditions for cultivating high-quality licensed pharmacists.