QU’s pharmacy college students win best poster award during Qatar Patient Safety Week

Students at Qatar University College of Pharmacy (QU-CPH) recently participated in the fifth Qatar Patient Safety Week (QPSW) organised by the Healthcare Quality & Patient Safety (HQPS) Department at the Ministry of Public Health (MoPH).
QPSW is an annual event that focuses on promoting patient safety in different healthcare and educational settings in Qatar and highlighting its importance as a global priority.
From among 135 posters presented during the event, QU-CPH final-year pharmacy students Somaya Koraysh and Sarra Koummich won the best poster award for their project titled, ‘Patient Safety in Pharmacy Undergraduate Education: A Comprehensive Systematic Review’.
The project was completed under the supervision of CPH assistant dean for Student Affairs Dr Alla El-Awaisi and CPH head of the Clinical Pharmacy and Practice Section, Dr Maguy El-Hajj.
It was conducted as part of the student research course during their third professional year at CPH.
CPH dean Dr Mohamed Diab said, “Believing in the QU mission of excellence, the College of Pharmacy exerts massive efforts in maintaining and improving the quality of its education through encouraging students to participate in competitions like the Qatar Patient Safety Week. This quality of excellence and leadership is evident in our students, and winning posters such as this shows how the college caters to graduate students who are capable of providing optimal care to the public.”
Koraysh noted, “The QPSW slogan this year is ‘Speak up for Patient Safety’.Through our research, we were able to argue that addressing patient safety should not be limited to current healthcare professionals when a bigger impact can be achieved if the concept is introduced at an early educational stage. We consider ourselves fortunate for the opportunity to present our research in such an important event. We were also humbled by the positive feedback we received after the ceremony about the poster.”
Koummich added, “Patient safety is being more recognised now. Many efforts are conducted on a national and international level to increase the awareness and implementation of patient safety.
As much as we believe that those efforts are important, we also argue that patient safety should be implemented early in the education process because it is the foundation of healthcare.
All healthcare providers should learn and acquire knowledge with patient safety as their aim.”