Introduction This year LIT was successfully held in Nepal and Egypt, and we welcome more countries to start national LIT and enjoy the joyful training spirit. PCE is a great event to promote pharmacists’ counselling skills and profession awareness. We have PCE events around the world this year with articles from Singapore, Egypt, Taiwan-China and Nepal respectively. Some of them are first timer in holding PCE event. Check out this newsletter to find out how they were carried out and benefited from these events.

First LIT in

Pokhara -Nepal 1-3 March 2009

There has always been perpetual problem regarding the development of pharmacy profession in Nepal. Thus, it was a high priority situation for any organisation to lead pharmacy students and pharmacists in the path of professional development so that they could develop competency and lift the pharmacy profession here in Nepal. So, PUSPA decided to launch Leaders in Training of IPSF in Nepal in order to develop leadership qualities of pharmacy students as well as pharmacists. It is the first time in Nepal that PUSPA organised the Leaders in Training as the part of the national symposium.

Games as the method of training Participants were provided with toilet paper and said to take as many squares as they want. Then participants were said to give an introduction about themselves by giving one piece of information per square of toilet paper they have. This was the game which was believed that it might increase the skill of communication as well as being fun at the same time. Some of the participants had torn a long piece of paper and they gave a long introduction about themselves. Such campaign in itself is a major step towards developing individual as future leader who can guide community and society for a well being. Thus, for a pharmacist student who require exposure with a patient, such program proved effective in developing communication skills

First LIT in

Cairo -Egypt 1-3 March 2009

What is EPSF? It's the national association of Egypt. What is EPSF LIT? EPSF LIT (Leaders in Training) is a recipe for success which has a lot of scientific ingredients mixed carefully with a bunch of fun! In it you get to know a lot about Personal Development, Communication, Project Management, Succession Planning, Group Dynamics and Successful Training. What makes it tasty with low calories is its peer education system, so the instructors and students are almost the same age, they can laugh with each other, laugh on each other and anyone could get a punishment. Of course we can't forget the friendly environment you should introduce LIT in, so it was amazing!! Egypt had two LIT events and the third one is being planned at the regional symposium. The first LIT was in Cairo and mainly for the EPSF board which helped to raise up members qualifications and strengthen communication between them. LIT was a perfect medium to energize, inspire students and refine their talents. LIT had a positive effect on EPSF structure and helped to discover the hidden treasures in the new members. The Second LIT was in Upper Egypt, in Bani-Suef. Due to geography issues, Upper Egypt Students find it hard to join all activities in Cairo, and to keep them in focus and not let them miss the fun, they had their own LIT. In addition to all benefits LIT give, it helped to keep the integrity of EPSF, overcoming barriers and distance, all this encouraged students and brought a stream of interaction and creativity. After two successful LIT events, Egypt will be honoured to hold the regional LIT event which will have students from the Eastern Mediterranean Region, which will bring LIT benefits into a large scale use and promote for its unique peer education system.

PCE in

Singapore 4th of April 2009

The annual Patient Counselling Event, organized by the NUSPS, was held on 4th April 2009. The aim of the event is to enhance the communication skills of pharmacy students in the area of patient counselling, by allowing interaction between the students and working pharmacy professionals. The response for the event was good, with around 60 students from years one, two and three turning up for the event. The event commenced at 09:30, starting with two enactment videos (prepared beforehand by the S&E committee) being shown to the audience. The videos comprised of positive and negative examples of situations pertaining to patient counselling in a hospital setting. It gave an insight into the basic principles of positive patient counselling and helped to break the ice between the pharmacy professionals and the students. Next, the three guest speakers took turns to give presentations on patient counselling with regard to their respective work environments and job experience. The first guest speaker, Mr Ivan Chew, shared his knowledge on the NUS Preceptorship Programme. It was an enlightening speech and was especially meaningful for the year two students as they would be embarking on their own Preceptorship Programme during the oncoming three months vacation. The second guest speaker, Miss Christine Teng, our very own NUS lecturer, shared with us guidelines on pharmacist-conducted patient education and counselling as well as the ways to good pharmacy practice. It was a wonderful presentation, with helpful tips on counselling patients and advice on handling diverse situations. Our third and last guest speaker, Miss Jasmine Ong, a Year Three senior, shared with us about the preceptorship programme through a student’s point of view. We learnt that the Preceptorship Programme offers a lot of learning opportunities which would definitely come in handy when we embark on our professional journey after we graduate.

After listening to the eye-opening presentations by the guest speakers, it was time for the audience to put to good use the knowledge that was just imparted to them. It was the role-playing segment of the event and four volunteers from the audience were asked to role-play as pharmacists, handling a difficult ‘patient’ each. It was a fun and educational experience for the volunteers and audience as each of the volunteer tried their best to handle the challenging ‘patients’. Overall, the four volunteers did a terrific job in handling the ‘patients’ and impressed the panel of judges. The eventual winner emerged with only a slight margin over the rest.

All in all, the event was a great success, thanks to the hard work put in by the organizers, the guest speakers for their taking their precious time out to grace the event and the enthusiastic participants. It was truly an engaging and fruitful session for all those present and I am sure they are already looking forward to next year’s Patient Counselling Event.

PCE serial competition in

Egypt Patient Counselling Event is one of the main projects of the Pharmacy Profession Development Committee in EPSF as taken from IPSF. Patient Counselling Event is utilized to provide the pharmaceutical students with the scientific data they may need to provide the counselling for patients and also the skills they will need to deliver this scientific data including the presentation skills, negotiation skills, body language control and other skills.

The event was added to the committee’s plan in the General Assembly held in August 2008 in Tanta. The event has been decided to be made in the form of a seminar for providing fundamental data followed by an evaluation output through a competition. The Event was held in 7 Universities: Russian University, Ain Shams University, EL Azhar (Male) University, Azhar (Female) University, Bany Suef, El Mansoura, and El Zagazaig University. They also hosted students from other universities including Cairo University, Canadian University, German University, and Tanta University.

When the final competition parameters had been assigned (Place – Date –Competition procedure), it was decided to be made in the meetings hall in Dar El Madfaiaa Hotel on 10th of April 2009. The winners were certified and rewarded. The event has been attended by over 3000 Pharmaceutical Student from the 11 universities listed above. The event took 2 weeks to prepare on the national level, 27 days to hold the event in universities, and finally the final competition ran from 1 March 2009 and ended on 10 April 2009. Total number of students registered for the competition was over 100. And the total number of winners in all universities reached 21.

First PCE in

Taichung-PSA - Taiwan 3rd of May 2009

Patient counseling has always been a key word for pharmacists. We have courses at each school of pharmacy; however, the training of how to counsell a patient is still not sufficient. PCE is the project launch by PSA-Taiwan this year including circuit lectures on PCE in all seven pharmacy schools, renewal of the Chinese PCE handbook, and the most importantly, the PCE competition. 10 judges from universities, hospital pharmacy and community pharmacy were invited. With over forty students competing in the event, the first ever PCE contest in Taichung achieved huge success. Something worth to be mentioned is that we collaborated with art school’s department of drama, inviting their students to act as patients in each case. After the final round, judges selected top three winners and the first place winner won

10,000 NT dollars as a prize.The event attracted much attention to teachers of clinical pharmacy. We hope, through this annual event, to gain awareness amongst both pharmacy students and professors in our country. No doubt, there is too much to learn in the field of PCE. As clinical pharmacy thriving these days, there should be more courses on counselling and communication other than theoretical pharmacology

First PCE in

Pokhara-Nepal 5 March, 2009

Patient Counselling Event was launched for the first time in Nepal and feedback from students was overwhelmingly positive. They said it was an enriching experience and that they learnt quite a lot about patient counselling. Patient centred care is paramount to the pharmacy profession and one of the most important professional functions of a licensed pharmacist is patient counselling. Due to this, the National Symposium included PCE as the important session. On the first day, March 5, 2009, Associate Professor Baburam Humagain, PCE coordinator for Symposium introduced about the concept of patient counselling, the problem hindering good pharmacy practice and some suggested strategies to solve them. Similarly he also demonstrated skills required during patient counselling. On the same day, the floor was open to register names of students for PCE competition on next day. Almost 12 students registered their name to participate in the completion. On the next day, participants were placed on separate area from main venue. Ten minutes prior to the competition, participant was provided with prescription and materials like books for preparation. After completion of time, participant was sent to hall where they had to face a surrogate patient. The surrogate patient might be a teacher or trained students. The role play between participant and surrogate patient was really interesting and other students of the symposium really enjoyed the event. Judges judged their performance and presentation skills and on the basis of different criteria, the highest score was declared to be the winner. Newsletter by :

Ling-Yi Tsai Chairperson of Professional Development 2008-09 Designed By :

Amr Sobhy Chariperson of Media and Publications 2009-10