Pharmacy Education Around the World

Today we visited the Mahidol University College of Pharmacy where we compared and contrasted the health systems and standards of pharmacy practice between Thailand and the United States. Mahidol is the highest performing and most notable pharmacy program in Thailand, with extremely motivated faculty members and students pumping out over 100 research publications a year and serving as the standard of pharmacy education in Southeast Asia. Being able to talk with health care professionals that have been trained in both the United States and Thailand provided an extremely broad and unique view of health care.

My biggest take away from our discussions is that the U.S. and Thailand are moving in opposite directions of pharmacy practice in an attempt to provide both readily available and reliable healthcare. In Thailand any citizen can go to a pharmacy and pick up most prescription medications without seeing a doctor beforehand, they can simply describe their symptoms to a pharmacist and they can diagnose/provide immediate counseling and medication for many ailments. This process was adopted years ago after the country tried restructuring itself after the perils of WWII, when patients had almost no access to prescribers it became necessary to have medicine readily available at clinics and pharmacies to ensure patients were cared for. Now, due to these practices Thailand is witnessing some of the most severe and deadly antibiotic drug resistance on the planet and is working towards more restrictive pharmacy practice.

For those reading in the United States, you know very well that we have quite the opposite practice style. Patients must see a prescriber for diagnosis before pharmacists are able to dispense meds. This practice has been possible due to our relative high availability of healthcare professionals in comparison to developing nations and has allowed us to be more restrictive on access to addictive medications and reduce the spread of resistant infectious diseases. However, no system is perfect and we continuously struggle to provide fast and effective healthcare due to all the steps a patient must take to get medications, this is exactly why pharmacists are pushing so hard for prescriber status. In a very simplified way, one could say the U.S. is striving more for a pharmacy system like Thailand while Thailand is striving to be more like the United States.

In the United States if you have an infection you need to go to the ER or schedule a visit to the clinic to get antibiotics which can take days and cost thousands of dollars. In Thailand, you can go to a pharmacy at 1am and buy a Z-Pack instantly for $4 but there is a very real chance the infection is extremely resistant and potentially untreatable. No one should ever assume their style of healthcare is perfect, we need to keep our minds open to new ideas from all around the world and work together to ensure our planet is safe and healthy for future generations.

-Justin R.