Pharmacy college to get new building by next year

The College of Pharmacy (CPH) at Qatar University is likely to get its new building next year, a senior official said.“Our new building is getting ready and in all probability, we will move into the new premises by next year. At present we are operating from the Women’s College of Arts and Sciences,” Dr Ayman El-Kadi, dean of CPH told Gulf Times.“At present the pharmacy programmes are open only to woman students. We have plans to admit male students when we move into the new college. However, it will not happen very soon as it needs to be approved by the university board. Depending on the approval from the university authorities, we will take the decision after moving into the new building,” he added.The official said the college has so far graduated 94 BSc pharmacists, 36 Doctor of Pharmacy (PharmD) graduates and five Master of Pharmacy students. Another 25 BSc, six PharmD and two MSc graduates are expected to pass out from the college this year. The dean said the masters programme has two specialisations. “We have MSc Pharmaceutical Sciences and MSc Clinical Pharmacy. So far, we have graduated four in pharmaceutical sciences and one in clinical pharmacy.” The dean said the college has submitted a proposal for PhD in pharmacy to the university board for approval. “The PhD programme is in collaboration with the College of Medicine and the College of Health Sciences. This is one of the expansion plans we are aiming for in the coming years. This is also an example of collaboration with other colleges in the university,” he said.El-Kadi felt there was a growing interest among Qatari students to pursue pharmacy programmes.“Of the graduates so far, around 15% are Qataris. However, we see a great increase in the number of Qatari students in recent years and in the present batches, about 30% are Qatari students. We expect the number to increase in the coming years.” The dean said the new facility will be a state-of-the-art building with several features that will help the students and the faculty in a big way.“The new building will be a great one with a number of features that will further enable the students to pursue their programmes in a better way. We will have large and small rooms according to the capacity of the programmes. In addition, there will be interactive classrooms with facility for video conferencing. There will be mannequins and the students will be able to work with simulated patients. In addition there will be all the facilities for state-of-the-art research.”