Course overview

Pharmacy at Keele enables you to develop the values and attitudes required of a pharmacist. Pharmacists play a key role in the different aspects of medicine design, development and delivery, ensuring the safe and appropriate supply and administration of medicines.

Key pharmacy skills

How medicines treat medical conditions and discovering how the body works are just some of the features of our Pharmacy programme. Prescribing and clinical skills are a key component of the course alongside developing important communication skills so you can confidently engage with patients and work effectively as part of a multi-disciplinary team.

You will develop a solid foundation in areas such as biology and chemistry and build on these progressively throughout each academic year. You will explore key themes such as pharmacology where you will learn how drugs work within the body, and you'll also cover pharmaceutics where you will focus on formulating drugs in ways that can administered to a patient. You will explore therapeutic areas which concentrate on medical conditions, how they are diagnosed and monitored and what treatments should be used to effectively manage them.

You will study the current legal framework for pharmacy and develop your ethical reasoning to enable you to act in the best interests of patients such as the emergency supply of medicines.

Engaging with patients

A successful pharmacist engages with patients skillfully through careful listening and provision of evidence based advice. The role of the pharmacist is multi-faceted, you will need to confidently provide advice, deal with sensitive subject areas, signpost people to additional services and provide guidance on how patients should administer their medication. You will also interact with carers, other service users and a wide range of healthcare professionals.

As a healthcare professional you will also seek to promote healthy lifestyles with individuals which may involve initiating challenging conversations about health issues in society like weight management or alcohol consumption. We nurture you to develop those pivotal communication skills so you can manage these discussions in a confident, sensitive and effective manner.

Innovative learning

We use a range of innovative methods and 21^st century technology to give you the best opportunities to learn authentic pharmacist skills. Our facilities include a 3D lecture theatre, virtual and augmented reality facilities, and a clinical skills suite to aid development of your hard and soft skills.

You will engage in tasks with students on other healthcare courses to help build your understanding of other medical professions, helping prepare you for your future working environment.

Pharmacy and the Covid-19 pandemic

Pharmacists have played a critical role throughout the ongoing global pandemic. They have been involved in the manufacturing, and quality assurance of vaccines, their storage and distribution, and taken on the role of vaccinators as part of the vaccine roll out.

Our expertise

Experienced academics, including staff who are research active teach on this programme. Many of our staff are practising pharmacists and we also have individuals who have extensive practice working in the pharmaceutical industry. Academics provide context and perspective to all aspects of our course.

Strengthening your employability

Placements

You will be able to experience the role of a pharmacist in a wide range of settings over the four years of the MPharm. This will include placements in the community, primary care and hospital settings. Placement learning will be integrated with your theoretical studies on campus to enable you to achieve all of your learning outcomes and make informed decisions about your future career aspirations.

Your placements will form an increasingly large component of your studies over the duration of your four years at Keele. The School will be responsible for arranging all of your placement activities.

Student support

We provide you with a supportive educational environment and at the beginning of the programme, you will be allocated an academic mentor tutor who will provide academic advice and guidance.

During your first and second year you are assigned a mentor to encourage your professional development. Your mentor will be a registered healthcare professional in either pharmacy or medicine. You will also benefit from peer support from a current student who is currently in year three or four.

Our Faculty Student Experience and Support team offer guidance and advice and gives one to one support to students within the School of Pharmacy and Bioengineering.

There is additional help available from the School's Disability Liaison Officer who provides an extra layer of assistance for all students, particularly for those who have additional support requirements.

You can also access plenty of student advice and support  services at Keele including;

• Learning Support and Academic Guidance
• Disability Services
• English Language Unit
• Student Advice at Keele (ASK)
• Student Support Services
• Occupational Health Department