July 5, 2023
Five pharmacy students from Monash University in Australia, a PharmAlliance partner, recently completed their eight-week visiting scholars program with the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy’s Center for Innovative Pharmacy Education and Research (CIPhER).
Each visiting scholar is a fourth-year honor student in Monash’s Master of Pharmacy program. They will complete the master’s course after their upcoming fifth-year internship. Mohmmed Almosawy, Yuko Ito-Kay, Rimsha Kalia, Yannee Liu and Alexandra Steel unanimously agreed that this experience enhanced their pharmacy education—particularly all the research tools and skills they learned.
“This was my very first experience in research. Coming into this was very daunting, but seeing how far I’ve been able to come and all that I’ve learned has been a highlight. I’m leaving with a new sense of confidence in myself,” said Ito-Kay.
“Each day we were meeting new challenges – conducting a scoping review from scratch, which we had never done before, conducting a search strategy, data analysis, to getting the formatting in excel just right. We were learning along the way, but I think that’s the process of us developing as researchers,” said Liu.
During the eight weeks, the group focused on two research projects—a scoping review of research training within health professions education and a website analysis identifying the core concepts of health system pharmacy administration and leadership.
For Almosawy, presenting his group’s findings at the end of the visit impacted him. “Yuko and I presented our final findings, and they were very proud of what we have done over the last eight weeks. They even took our personal emails to continue communicating with us so we can work on publishing our results in a journal. That was a proud moment—all of our hard work came together in the end,” he said.
The students from Monash worked closely with Jacqui McLaughlin, Ph.D., director of CIPhER and associate professor in the Division of Practice Advancement and Clinical Education (PACE) and Kathryn Morbitzer, Pharm.D., associate director of CIPhER and associate professor in PACE.
“These students were a great fit for CIPhER – they brought new ideas, unique experiences, and an enthusiasm for education that clearly elevated the quality of our research. With their help, CIPhER was more efficient and effective in our efforts to better understand entrustable professional activities and core concepts in pharmacy education. We look forward to ongoing collaborations with them as we work to improve the training of pharmacists and pharmaceutical scientists around the world,” said McLaughlin.
In addition to research, coming to Carolina was a true cross-cultural experience. The group was able to explore different cities and states on the weekends, try new foods and restaurants and receive true southern hospitality. “Southern hospitality is real, and I’m here for it,” said Kalia. “Everyone has been very accommodating and welcoming here. They’ve been treating us like colleagues,” added Steel.
Although they come from the same university, the five of them admitted they didn’t even know each other prior to coming to Carolina. Their cohort at Monash is around 250 students, so this was a real opportunity to get to know each other and bond while being thousands of miles from home.
“The common thread throughout this experience has been sharing it with the five of us and building relationships here. All of these moments have shaped who we are now, and we will take that back to Australia,” said Liu.
Latest News
Dean Angela Kashuba receives Carolina Alumni Faculty Service Award
RASP poster presentations capture student research
