March 20, 2024
Five pharmacy students from Monash University in Australia, a PharmAlliance partner, are about to complete 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 student in Monash’s Bachelor of Pharmacy program. They will receive their master’s after their upcoming fifth-year internship. Cassie Bright, Alice Doan, Sooyeon Kim, Amanda Kirollos and Talia Raman unanimously agreed that this experience enhanced their pharmacy education and opened their eyes to new opportunities for the future.
“For me, I have the aspiration to work globally in the future, so this has been a great experience for me to understand what that might be like, and it’s given me insight into how research is done globally too,” said Raman.
During the eight weeks, the group focused on several research projects, but the primary group project was identifying core concepts in pharmacy administration and leadership.
“We worked to identify the overarching skills someone needs before entering pharmacy administration or leadership,” said Bright. “There were 14 in total, but a few examples are financial management, communication, leadership and organizational behaviors.”
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.
In addition to working with CIPhER, 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 a few of them even got to experience the Carolina men’s basketball team beat Duke in person. “I’m a huge basketball fan, so I think I was screaming the entire time. It was an amazing experience,” said Kirollos.
Although coming to a new country for two months can be overwhelming, the group gives credit to their bond for an easy adjustment.
“This trip has been a great bonding experience. We’ve been spending a lot of time together and these girls are amazing,” said Kim.
“This group of five is like my home away from home and has kept me grounded during this experience,” added Doan.
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