Pharmacy (MPharm)

The degree is modular in its organisation. Each module is supported by electronic teaching materials shared via Learning Central, part of the University’s virtual learning environment.

Teaching on site in the School mainly comprises lectures, practical classes and workshops, and computer-aided learning (CAL) is a feature of some practical classes and workshops. 

Off-site there are placements in health and social care practices and settings. In addition, there is inter-professional education (IPE) with medical students in all years of the programme: joint clinical skills workshops concentrating particularly on patient safety and on the safe and effective use of medicines.  There is also IPE with optometry students.  As well as encountering patients and other health practitioners during placements and IPE, patients, doctors, nurses and allied professionals contribute to learning in the university classroom.  By all of these approaches, our students receive both a scientific grounding in pharmacy and an orientation to and preparation for a career as a health care practitioner.

After a research methods module in year three, you will undertake a research, scholarly or practice-development project in year four.

There is a particular emphasis on progression towards independent learning in preparation for life-long learning and continuing professional development (CPD: which pharmacists are required to evidence no less frequently than every five years).  Consequently, directed private study and advised wider learning are features of all modules. 

In each year of the course, you are supported and required to produce records of your CPD activity and also of Personal Development Planning (PDP) and execution for specific competency or skills acquisition.

How will I be supported?

You will be provided with an enrolment and induction programme in the week immediately before formal teaching and learning begins.  You will be provided with copies of the Code of Conduct for Pharmacy Students (in Great Britain) and the School Safety Handbook.  You will be provided with a laboratory coat and a locker with key for the duration of your time with us.  It is your responsibility to wash the laboratory coat and to return the locker key when your time as a student is completed.  Most importantly, you will be provided with a timetable of classes in enrolment and induction week in September of each year.  All modules are supported by ‘electronic’ content on the University’s virtual learning environment, Learning Central.  You will be instructed as to how to access Learning Central and your University email and Student Information Management System (SIMS) accounts.

You will have access to the School Undergraduate Office (Redwood Room 1.01) to make enquiries, complete administrative processes and to pick up forms and other important documents.  The ‘pigeon holes’ for undergraduate student mail are just outside this office.

The personal tutor system is a vital and central part of student support within the School. The role of the personal tutor is to monitor overall academic progress and to provide feedback and advice to tutees. Tutors also provide personal support and academic guidance, acting where appropriate as the first point of contact and a gateway to the student support services provided by the University and the Students’ Union.  Information discussed with a personal tutor may be documented in a personal tutor’s notes.  Confidentiality will be maintained unless there are implications for patients’ or the public’s safety or well-being.  You will be assigned a tutor and deputy tutor at first enrolment in year one.  Normally these will be your tutor and deputy tutor throughout your time as a student.  There is more information in the MPharm Handbook.

Module leaders are contactable and make themselves available to answer student questions and address their difficulties with study of their module.

The University offers a range of services including the Careers Service, the Counselling Service, the Disability and Dyslexia Service, the Student Support Service, and excellent libraries and resource centres.

Feedback

We’ll provide you with frequent feedback on your work. This comes in a variety of formats including formative feedback during tutorials, discussion classes and problem-solving classes as well as through written comments on coursework.

How will I be assessed?

Progress in each module is assessed during and at the end of the semester(s) in which they are taught.  Many modules include formative or diagnostic assessments (assessments which do not count towards the module mark) which are intended to help your understanding and to provide you with an indication of your progress.  Methods of summative assessment (assessments which count towards the module mark) are varied: essay assignments, multiple-choice question tests, conventional written examinations, assessed presentations, and objective structured clinical examinations (OSCEs) and other practical/skills tests are all used as appropriate.

The course leads, after subsequent pre-registration training, to registration as a pharmacist and is regulated, through accreditation, by the GPhC.  Consequently, there are capabilities or competencies that all students must evidence at a satisfactory level to be allowed to progress through and achieve the final award of the programme. For pharmaceutical calculations, dispensing and clinical assessments students can be required to achieve at pass marks higher than 40%. Such cases are clearly stated in the schedules of assessment for each year of study within the set of module descriptions for that year.

What skills will I practise and develop?

You will acquire and develop a range of valuable skills, both those which are discipline specific and more generic ‘employability skills’.

As a result of engaging fully with this course, you will be able to:

• evidence and apply a systematic knowledge and understanding of the scientific, clinical, professional, social, legal and ethical aspects of the use and misuse of medicinal agents;
• evidence a critical awareness of current problems and/or new insights in pharmacy, much of which is at, or informed by, the forefront of pharmaceutical science and practice;
• evidence and apply understanding of techniques applicable to research or advanced scholarship;
• demonstrate the application of knowledge to practice;
• evaluate critically current research and advanced scholarship in pharmaceutical science and practice;
• evaluate research methodologies and develop critiques of them;
• communicate effectively with patients, the public and other members of the healthcare team;
• supply medicines dependably in accordance with pharmacy knowledge, legislation, professional conduct and with other aspects of pharmacy law and ethics;
• undertake continuing professional development and independent learning;
• undertake preregistration training and thereby qualify as a pharmacist in the UK.