April 17, 2023
The Office of Global Engagement in the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy hosted faculty from the University of Eastern Finland (UEF) School of Pharmacy earlier this month. UEF had the opportunity to visit both of the School’s campuses in Chapel Hill and Asheville.
“We enjoyed having our pharmacy colleagues from Finland visit the Asheville Campus to learn about our interprofessional practice and education models,” said Mollie Scott, Pharm.D., regional associate dean on the School’s Asheville campus and associate professor in the Division of Practice Advancement and Clinical Education. “They met with pharmacy and medical faculty, pharmacy residents, and student pharmacists to discuss how to leverage pharmacists in team-based care to optimize medications.”
UEF recently developed a new concentration in clinical pharmacy within their Master of Pharmacy program. Their visit to the School was focused on learning more about clinical pharmacy education and practice and to discuss potential areas for collaboration in research and graduate education.
This came about because of a long-standing relationship between Kim Brouwer, Pharm.D., Ph.D., the William R. Kenan Jr. Distinguished Professor in the Division of Pharmacotherapy and Experimental Therapeutics, Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Education, and UEF, as well as Paavo Honkakoski, Ph.D., who received the 2019-2020 Nannerl O. Keohane Distinguished Visiting Professor Award from Carolina.
Brouwer said, “My collaborations in research and education with colleagues at the School of Pharmacy, Faculty of Health Sciences, in Kuopio, Finland, began more than a decade ago with Professor Paavo Honkakoski’s sabbatical in my lab. We have hosted numerous outstanding Finnish postdoctoral fellows and graduate students over the years as part of this collaboration.”
The visitors from UEF included: Jarkko Ketolainen, Ph.D., professor and head of the school of pharmacy; Krista Laine, Ph.D., BSc, university lecturer; Miia Tiihonen, Ph.D., associate professor of clinical pharmacy, senior researcher and head of clinical pharmacy discipline; and Paavo Honkakoski, Ph.D., professor, head of biopharmacy discipline.
“Our partnership is important for UEF as the university is reforming its research and education in pharmacy to meet the changing needs of the future,” said Brouwer.
The UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy continues to grow on a global scale with visits like this, our PharmAlliance relationships and the Global Pharmacy Sholars program that develops students to be global leaders.
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