Sweden’s largest pharmacy programme investing in a sustainable future

Karin, you are the new Programme Chair. How do you view this role?
I graduated from this very programme in 2011, and I am more passionate than ever about how our profession’s expertise can best benefit society. Being entrusted with contributing to the development of the Master of Science Programme in Pharmacy feels incredibly inspiring.

What issues would you like to explore further?
How can we boost our students’ confidence in decision-making? How can we optimise their abilities to support patients in their medication treatment? How can we best integrate entrepreneurship and innovation into our programme? In short, there are many relevant avenues to explore.

Lisa, you have been Coordinator since 2022. How is the Programme currently doing?
Very well, thank you. The establishment of a Programme Committee has provided us with the opportunity to work in a focused way on programme-related issues. We are also committed to increasing the number of applicants to our programme, and we can see that admission scores are rising – but of course, we want even more people to become interested in our fantastic programme.

How will you attract even more future pharmacists to Uppsala?
We are collaborating with the faculty’s student recruitment unit, STURE, which is doing a great job. We also know how important it is to attract students with a correct understanding of what studying pharmacy actually entails. Here, we identify upper secondary schools and their teachers as very important channels, and we are currently developing our dialogue with them.

What is currently at the top of the committee’s agenda?
Three priorities: Continuing to expand the points of contact between our students and life science industry, pharmacies, healthcare and government agencies. Providing our students even better tools to contribute to a sustainable future – from drug development to prescribing. And of course, continuing our internationalisation efforts, with an increasing number of students now taking the opportunity to study at one of our faculty’s many partner universities.

And now this autumn’s new students are finally here. How was the atmosphere when they entered BMC for the first time?
Positive, engaged and curious. When we arrived at the lecture hall, they had already started mingling with one another, and almost all of them had registered with the Pharmaceutical Student Union. If they continue in this same way, we have welcomed yet another very strong group of students to the Faculty of Pharmacy, so the future certainly looks promising.

Text: Magnus Alsne • photo: Christian Sköld a o