It's high time to dissolve PCI

If rampant corruption and predominant unethical malpractices have forced the Centre to scrap the Medical Council of India and bring in the National Medical Council, it is high time the Government dissolved Pharmacy Council of India and established a National Pharmacy Commission.

The PCI was constituted under the Pharmacy Act 1948, a pre-Constitution enactment. It failed miserably in looking after interests of the profession of pharmacy and pharmacy practice in the country.  

When Pharm.D was introduced in 2008 in the country, PCI did not consult AICTE, MCI and accrediting agencies like National Accreditation Board for Hospitals & Healthcare Providers. They did not take steps to establish a separate accreditation agency for pharmacies.  AICTE is the regulator and facilitator of degree and higher education in Pharmacy as per the provisions of AICTE Act 1987 and MCI is the regulator of medical education in the country.

The pharmaceutical industry, which produced drugs worth '10 crore in 1947, has  became the third largest producer of medicine in the world with an annual production of drugs worth over '1.30 L crore by 2017.  In place of 4 pharmacy degree colleges in 1947 today there are more 1,600 of them.  

Yet the country is far behind in modernization of pharmacy practice. Even Gulf countries fare better in pharmacy practice. Pharmacies in the country operate even without a diploma pharmacist. 

The blame rests squarely on the PCI, the sole agency responsible for the regulation of practice of pharmacy. Their interest has been to cater to private educational institutions. Within 10 years they managed to establish more than 230 Pharm.D colleges, almost all of them in the private sector. The major allegation against PCI is that it functions like a private limited company looking after vested interests.

There are about one million community pharmacies and 200,000 hospital pharmacies in the country. Many of them do not have services of pharmacists.

In a public interest litigation in 2017, Allahabad High Court directed the UP Health Secretary to instruct the Drugs Control department to implement the scheme of  registration of licences of hospital and community pharmacies with Aadhaar linkage of  owners and registered pharmacists and report the progress of the work  to the Court at regular intervals. The Court was forced to do so because registered pharmacists in UP were few and the registered medical stores were in large number.  Some states have implemented the scheme.

Kerala, with comparatively higher indices in education and health, has to play a proactive role in the case of implementation of PPR regulation of Pharm.D and Pharmacy Practice. The State should introduce an accreditation system for community and hospital pharmacies. 

Different streams: Diploma in pharmacy (D.Pharm) 2-year course after 10+2, Bachelor of pharmacy (B.Pharm) 4-year course after 10+2, Master of pharmacy (MPharm) 2-year after B.Pharm, Doctor of pharmacy (Pharm.D) 6-year programme after 10+2, Doctor of Pharmacy (Pharm.D) P.B 3-year programme after B.Pharm and Doctor of philosophy (Ph.D) 3-year after M.Pharm.

Out of 46 degree colleges, 16 run Pharm.D courses. No government institution conducts Pharm.D though two of them run MPharm Pharmacy Practice.  The state government has to take up new and emerging programmes like Pharm.D since government institutions offer opportunities mostly on merit and leave scope for poor and financially backward sections.

AICTE and UGC have schemes to fund Government institutions for starting innovative programmes in pharmacy and other technical courses. 

But it's unjust that Kerala permits private colleges to fill up all Pharm.D seats by themselves, without allotting 50 percent merit seats from Government quotas and the process has been on for over 8 years.

All degree programmes like B.Pharm, M.Pharm and Pharm.D are under Kerala University of Health Sciences. The conduct of Pharm.D course and its examinations have to improve in the state.

Currently Pharm.D is under Pharmacy PG Board of Studies in KUHS though there are separate boards in many Indian universities for Pharm.D. The peculiar nature of Pharm.D  programme is such that  common boards of studies cannot do justice to the programme. Separate boards for Pharm.D and Pharmacy Practice have to be constituted in all universities where Pharm.D courses are conducted. 

(Author is director,  Kerala Institute for Drug Studies)

Make the best out of Pharm.D

Pharm.D as it is understood today originated as an innovation of the University of Southern California in 1950 as a six-year programme. In 1955, the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF) also started   Pharm.D.

During  1960s  the consumer movement initiated by Ralph Nader   helped attract highly qualified pharmacists with MS/M.Pharm/Pharm.D degrees to American community and hospital pharmacies as hospitals and doctors were forced to pay huge compensations for medicine-related errors and accidents. The presence of Pharm.D/ M.Pharm Practice pharmacists in community and hospital pharmacies ushered in many innovations in pharmacy practice.

By 1980s, US authorities adopted Pharm.D as their national professional degree programme and later made it the minimum requirement for practice of Pharmacy in USA. Today Pharm.D is available in all most all countries. India is the only country where diploma in pharmacy is minimum qualification for registration and practice of pharmacy.   

On May 16, 2008, the Union Health and Family Welfare notified the Doctor of Pharmacy (Pharm.D) programme in the Gazette of India. More than 230 colleges conduct the six-year Pharm.D courses under various universities, including Kerala University of Health Sciences (KUHS). More than 70 percent of Pharm.D colleges are in South Indian states.  

Pharm.D is very much similar to professional degrees like Doctor of Medicine (MD) or Doctor of Dental Surgery (DDS) in USA. In India Pharm.D is equated to M.Pharm Pharmacy Practice, though both have their own strengths and weakness.  

Pharm.D curriculum is so strong that it overshoots the MBBS subjects in many areas including pharmacology. Barring surgery and diagnosis, Pharm.Ds study all other MBBS subjects.

Indian Universities running Pharm.D have to start one-year or 18-month fellowship programmes for both Pharm.D and M.Pharm Pharmacy Practice so that they can specialize in disciplines like nephrology, urology, psychiatry, neurology, oncology, dermatology, paediatrics, endocrinology/ diabetology and geriatrics.   

It will help   medical specialists to understand the caliber of Pharm.D and Practice people and help them use their support for drug therapy, clinical studies, research activities and other data mining activities. That will be a win-win for both medical and pharmacy professionals. Patients will benefit very much.

Research needs collaboration and integration. Indiawith lot of medicinal  flora and fauna fail to discover newer and effective medicines mainly because of the compartmentalization various disciplines. All universities conducting pharmacy courses shall start full-time PhD programmes with the support of external funding agencies.