Ukrainian pharmacy school deans visit Canada (01/26/97)

Ukrainian pharmacy school deans visit Canada

by Marta Dyczo
Special to The Ukrainian Weekly

TORONTO - Even the greatest doctor in the world cannot cure a patient without availability of adequate medication. This is the situation doctors in Ukraine face every day. Dr. Lesia Babiak of the Ontario Ministry of Health, Drug Programs Branch, has been working with pharmacists in Ukraine to address this very problem for over two years.

Late last year the deans of Ukraine's pharmaceutical schools came to Canada through a Canadian Partners in Health project organized by Dr. Babiak. They met with representatives of the full gamut of the pharmaceutical profession, including the Ontario College of Pharmacists, the deans of two top Canadian pharmacy schools, Ministry of Health officials and even the Canadian Drug Wholesalers Association. Dr. Babiak observed, "They got a comprehensive overview of what pharmacy is all about in Canada."

The October 7-November 2, 1996 visit was the third component of a five-part project aimed at improving the provision of pharmaceutical services in Ukraine through an exchange of skills and a creation of links in a variety of areas, the two most important being education and commerce. The project's goal is to effect long-term changes in the teaching of pharmacy in Ukraine and, more immediately, to create links with Canadian-based pharmaceutical companies, which would improve the availability of affordable drugs to Ukrainians.

With the assistance of Canadian partners, particularly the faculties of pharmacy at the universities of Toronto and Saskatchewan, a new curriculum for Ukraine's pharmaceutical schools is being developed. Upon completion it will be presented for approval to the Ukraine's Ministry of Health. Clinical pharmacy, which involves a move away from chemistry and hard sciences to patient-focused services, will be part of the new curriculum.

Following up on earlier contacts, meetings were held with Canadian-based pharmaceutical companies Novopharm Inc., Global Pharm Inc., and Apotex Inc. These meetings were aimed at developing contracts with Ukrainian pharmacies, particularly the pharmacy at the Lviv Medical Institute, which meets the pharmaceutical needs of Lviv and the surrounding area.

The Ukrainian pharmacists also had the opportunity to meet with Ukrainian Canadians working in their field. In addition to a formal dinner held at the University of Toronto Faculty Club by the Ukrainian Canadian Pharmacists Association on October 22, they met with them in their professional environments, ranging from the Clarke Institute of Pharmacy to community pharmacies owned and operated by Ukrainians.

Dividing their time between Ontario and Saskatchewan, the Ukrainian pharmacy scholars had an opportunity not only to see the Canadian pharmaceutical system at work, but to get to know each other - something that can be difficult to do when living in different cities and working at competing institutions. Representing the only three pharmacy schools in Ukraine, located in Lviv, Zaporizhia and Kharkiv, Drs. Valentyn Chernykh, Timothy Kalenyuk, Volodymyr Komar, and Ivan Mazur came to work as a team during their first trip abroad.

At the airport just prior to departure, Dr. Babiak overheard the Ukrainian deans making plans for the creation of a Ukrainian College of Pharmacists (the industry's self-regulating body), a Pharmacy Examining Board (the licensing board) and a Ukrainian Pharmacists Association (a voluntary professional society). "Having seen how our system works they are now preparing to use it as a model for setting up their structure, to fill in the missing pieces," said Dr. Babiak.

The next phase of the project involves the deans of the University of Toronto and University of Saskatchewan schools of pharmacy going to Ukraine in the spring of 1997. At that time they will join their Ukrainian colleagues in lobbying Ukraine's Ministry of Health to approve the new pharmacy curriculum. The fifth and final step of the project will involve plans to bring Ukrainians to Canada for three- to-six-month periods to study at Canadian universities.

| Home Page |