The Online Survey Regarding the Scope of Pharmacy

Greetings from the IPA-MSB-SF,
On the occasion of World Pharmacist Day, the IPA-MSB-SF had rolled out a
survey regarding various avenues of pharmacy that will surely prove
informative and helpful to the aspiring students. We are obliged by the
overwhelming response received from the students, who actively took up the
survey and helped the IPA-MSB-SF in generating valuable data regarding the
various aspects in pharmacy.
The topic of the survey was “Scope of pharmacy in various avenues” and it was
launched on 24th of September 2018 at 8 pm IST. The participants were the
students from all the pharmacy colleges around Mumbai.
The survey was carried out with a view to assess the opinions of the students
on various avenues of our field such as Education, Marketing, Research and
Development and Community pharmacy. Every area had a number of important
questions for the students to answer and on the basis of those answer the
opinions of the students were assessed.
The objective:
The main objective of the survey was to carry out a basic assessment of the
above mentioned fields in order to identify their existing problems and find
their potential solutions. It also proved to be helpful for all the newcomers to
understand the overall scenario of the pharmacy profession.
Execution:
The survey form was generated with a professional approach and launched on
time for all the pharmacy colleges. The responses went to a whooping range
of 550 to 600 within a day. We feel proud to share the fact that we received
positive results from the survey as the responses kept on gradually increasing
in a mere span of couple of days since its release. The objective of the survey
was satisfactorily met as we received positive response from the teaching staff
of various colleges as well.

Result of the survey:

The Research and Development field remains to be the most preferred field of
pharmacy by the students all over Mumbai. The reason behind this is explained
by Mr. Rakesh Maitre, national sales manager, Abbott. The members of the IPA￾MSB-SF had conducted a short interview with him in order to understand the
reason behind such discrepancy in the choice by the students and also to find
out the solutions to the same. Here is a small excerpt from his evaluation:
“My onwards 22 years journey in Pharma and recent trends and past
experiences rejoices me to see the changing pharma education and scope,
today it is most vibrant ongoing field to work for, today pharmacy student have
un-imaginary scope in the world, I always say till the time life will exist in this
world, pharmacy and pharmacist will exist as illness and life are ongoing
process as is life and death.
I would personally appeal to the students to look into pharmacy as it has a
great option in education, as it gives great options to lead a leader‟s life,
like to be a Marketer or an entrepreneur. This is the best option to be a
leader as you have complete knowledge of what to bring in market and how
to market, as my work life of business exists till ends of Human life. It has
immense scope to be a millionaire or a billionaire and rule the world by
giving chance for all people to have employment under you. For this I may
request students to do a management degree in Marketing and Sales, this is
just to understand the concept of business, for same I would suggest
student to have maximum out door industry real experience, learn world
requirements. I would be happy if all colleges across having 4 years degree
and a connected management course.

I would also be happy if all Pharma industry companies and colleges have a tie
up to train and give knowledge to each and every student of real industry in all
segments like R&D, Marketing, Production, Sales, Chemicals, and also in actual
hospital and pharmacies, the curriculum should be so robust that the student
should be full ready to do anything he wants in the industry with complete
knowledge.
Colleges to boost students’ courage and remove fear of students regarding
their future and life and ensure they have on hand experience in teaching in
their own colleges. The final year students can conduct classes for 1st years, so
students who want to pursue teaching as profession can have experience and
develop liking for the JOB, as teaching is great profession and if you don‟t
develop good teachers we will not have great students, who will be successful
teachers and entrepreneurs or Marketers.
I think with this excellent background of education, any student should have on
hand experience and then ensure PHD or some courses which they want to do,
as if they work in industry their own needs will be identified by themselves.
Don’t hear to anyone have your own experiences and have control of your own
life as you have chosen a great stream that is Pharmacy.
One area where lot need to be done by the government is pharmacy and
branded good quality medicines. We may still have many changes like
pharmacist recommended brands which have good quality, all tertiary places
to have compulsory pharmacist in place, which will give employment to all
students who want to pursue being a pharmacist as their career. Most
importantly, the government should have pharmacy as subject from school to
develop interest in student to ward this beautiful branch.
There are lot of scopes where pharma Industry needs to put money on. One of
them is R&D so that we have lot of research and have one of best manufacturing
in world, as we have real good talented student backs in India which is
Pharmacy student. There is a need is to widen the scope by sharing at least 7 to
8% of profits in to R&D.

Conclusion:
From this survey we can conclude that pharmacy is an evolutionary field and it 
offers various career options to the aspirants. It has avenues right from 
research to marketing. It also provides higher education in abroad 
opportunities.
Employment of pharmacists is projected to grow 6 percent over the next ten 
years, about as fast as the average for all occupations. Several factors are likely 
to contribute to this increase.
Demand is projected to increase for pharmacists in a variety of healthcare 
settings, including hospitals and clinics. These facilities will need more 
pharmacists to oversee the medications given to patients and to provide 
patient care, performing tasks such as testing a patient's blood sugar or 
cholesterol.
The large baby-booming generation is aging, and older people typically use more 
prescription medicines than younger people. Higher rates of chronic diseases such 
as diabetes among all age groups will also lead to demand for prescription 
medications. In addition, scientific advances will lead to new drug products.
Employment of pharmacists in some traditional retail settings, like grocery stores, is 
projected to decline slightly as mail order and online pharmacy sales increase.