Research Report on Social Requirements for Pharmacy Graduates

LUO Yu-jing, WU Chun-fu



Research Report on Social Requirements for Pharmacy Graduates

LUO Yu-jing, WU Chun-fu

ObjectiveTo discuss how pharmaceutical education, a minor part of higher education in China can cultivate students to meet the needs of the society. MethodsSurvey questionnaire and random sampling methods were used. Results and Conclusion The society needs pharmacy graduates at all levels. Universities should not only focus on students’ pharmacy professional education, but also strengthen their moral education. Practice teaching should be attached to undergraduate teaching activities, and educational resources should be made good use of in order to improve the continuing education.

pharmacy; graduate; requirement of society

1 background

The number of students dropped continuously in elementary and middle school with the declining birth rate according to the college entrance examination survey of 2012 released by China education online, and the figure was nearly 100 million in the past two decades.It was an inflection point for 18 school-age population in 2008, which caused the drop of college entrance examination enrollment greatly, and the number was 1.4 million in four years. The college entrance examination enrollment reached the highest of 10.5 million in 2008. And after that it began to decrease in general and it will continue to 2017 or 2020. In this context, some of colleges and universities would confront with the challenge of survival due to the scarcity of students. Meanwhile, studying abroad also shunted some students. Since 2007, studying abroad has remained a high-speed growth of twenty percent (20%)for four consecutive years, and the number reached 340 thousands in 2011. The report showed that the average proportion of enrolment for national college entrance from 57% in 2008 to 78.7% in 2011. The admission rates examination was growing rapidly in recent years. It grewwere over 85% in ten more regions in 2011, and even 92% in two provinces. The majority of provinces and cities could not complete their enrollment plans, which directly endanger the survival of some colleges and universities.

As to the subject status, pharmacy is the secondary subject in the medical discipline, it is a small branch in the higher education system in China. From the scale of recent recruitment of students, the number of higher pharmacy students is only about 0.5% of the higher national education. For such a small subject, seeking their own space of development and cultivating students to better meet the needs of society in the fierce competition is the purpose of this research.

2 The design of questionnaire

Pharmacy graduates from education level can be divided into four classes: junior college, undergraduate, master and PhD. The difference is large in students developing mechanism of each level. In general, the training process is decomposed into the curriculum, classroom teaching, teachers’ guidance, professional practice and dissertations, etc. The emphasis of each level is different. So the design of questionnaire also meets the needs of the four levels of the graduates respectively.

The questionnaire included four parts: the first part was the basic information of employing unit. The second part was the work requirements and their main work for students of each level. The third part was therequirements for morality, knowledge structure, practical ability and other aspects. The fourth part was their opinions on continuing education. Random sampling, investigation through recruitment and E-mail were adopted to deliver the questionnaire and 424 questionnaires were returned with only four invalid questionnaires. Thirty-five enterprises participated in the investigation of junior college students with one invalid questionnaire; one hundred and fifty questionnaires in the class of undergraduate with one invalid; one hundred and thirty-three questionnaires in the class of master without any invalid questionnaire; one hundred and six questionnaires in the class of doctoral with two invalid questionnaires. This conclusion met the requirements of the statistics.

3 The investigation report

The majority of valid questionnaires was on undergraduates, followed by graduate students, and the junior college students were the least, which partly reflected the social demand for the number of higher pharmaceutical talents with different levels. In order to make good use of the statistics, medical institutions, schools and government units were unified as the institutions, state-owned enterprises, private enterprises, joint ventures, wholly foreign owned enterprises and joint-stock enterprises were unified as the enterprises. In the returned four hundred and twenty-four questionnaires, one hundred questionnaires were from institutions, accounted for the overall proportion of 23.81%, three hundred and twenty questionnaires from enterprises, accounted for 76.19% of the total. In the questionnaires from enterprises, one third of the questionnaires were from private enterprises. From the demand situation of graduates of higher pharmacy based on social units with different nature, the main demand came from enterprises, accounting for the overall ratio of more than 70%, but institutions tended to pharmacy graduates of high levels. See Table 1.

Table 1 The overall social needs for higher pharmacy graduates of different levels

CategoryJunior collegeUndergraduateMasterDoctor NumberRatio (%)NumberRatio (%)NumberRatio (%)NumberRatio (%) Enterprises3088.2411577.189873.687572.12 Institutions411.763422.823526.322927.88

Note: the number in this table is the number of valid questionnaires

To analyze the differences of social demand for pharmacy graduates based on four levels of degree, we can see from Table 2 that the demand from private enterprises for pharmacy graduates is the biggest in all levels.

Institutions tend to have stronger demands for pharmacy graduates with advanced degree.

Table 2 The type of unit classified by main social demand for higher pharmacy graduates of different levels (top three)

RankingJunior collegeUndergraduateMasterPhD CategoryRatio(%)CategoryRatio(%)CategoryRatio (%)CategoryRatio (%) 1Private enterprise35.29Private enterprise30.87Private enterprise27.07Private enterprise25.00 2Joint-stock enterprises32.35Joint-stock enterprises19.46Institution organizations22.56Institutionorganizations23.08 3State-owned enterprise11.76Institution organizations18.12Joint-stock enterprises21.05Joint-stock enterprises19.23

Jobs for different levels of graduate are not same, junior college students are more likely to engage in drug circulation work, while more pharmacy graduates of high levels are engaged in drug development and management according to social demands, see Table 3.

Table 3 The social demand type of position for pharmacy graduates of different levels（top three）

RankingJunior collegeUndergraduateMasterPhD CategoryRatio(%)CategoryRatio (%)CategoryRatio (%)CategoryRatio (%) 1Sale26.67R&D18.94R&D32.21R&D37.14 2Manufacture18.67Quality control17.78Management18.79Management20.95 3Quality control17.33Manufacture16.17Quality control15.10Training10.48

Most of enterprises pay attention to students’ professional knowledge and their moral quality at large, and students with bachelor degree or higher degree should have management skills, but junior college students must have a certain marketing skills, see Table 4.

Table 4 Skills for pharmacy graduates (top three)

RankingJunior collegeUndergraduateMasterPhD CategoryRatio (%)CategoryRatio(%)CategoryRatio (%)CategoryRatio (%) 1Moral trait30.59Professional knowledge33.25Professional knowledge35.85Professional knowledge34.64 2Professional knowledge27.06Moral trait26.95Moral trait23.53Moral trait22.50 3Marketing knowledge17.65Managerial expertise14.86Managerial expertise17.37Managerial expertise21.43

As to the capability structure, the ability of interpersonal communication is concerned universally by the society on all levels of pharmacy graduates, enterprises pay more attention to the practical ability for pharmacy graduates of lower levels, but the ability of research and development will attract enterprises for the pharmacy graduates of high levels, see Table 5.

Table 5 The abilities for pharmacy graduates (top three)

RankingJunior collegeUndergraduateMasterPhD CategoryRatio (%)CategoryRatio (%)CategoryRatio (%)CategoryRatio (%) 1Communication ability33.72Communication ability31.33R&D ability25.53R&D ability27.08 2Experiment ability24.42Experiment ability24.34Communication ability24.59Communication ability22.46 3Marketing ability20.93R&D ability15.42Experiment ability22.22Manage ability21.54

As to the moral quality, the society pays more attention to their consciousness of hard work, dedication and the spirit of teamwork for pharmacy graduates of lower levels, but for pharmacy graduates of higher levels, the society is more concerned about their spirit of innovation and attitude of scientific research, see Table 6.

Table 6 Moral qualities for pharmacy graduates (top three)

RankingJunior collegeUndergraduateMasterPhD CategoryRatio (%)CategoryRatio (%)CategoryRatio (%)CategoryRatio (%) 1Hard work24.59Hard work22.34Innovation spirit18.72innovationspirit20.19 2Team spirit20.49Team spirit19.33Rigorous scientific attitude17.65Rigorous scientific attitude19.48 3Enterprise19.67Enterprise18.09Team spirit17.29Enterprise18.05

Pharmacy graduates of all levels should have good physical and mental qualities. Meanwhile they must withstand setbacks, and be optimistic, ambitious and outgoing. And they should harmonize with others, see Table 7.

Table 7 Physical and mental qualities for pharmacy graduates (top three)

RankingJunior collegeUndergraduateMasterPhD CategoryRatio (%)CategoryRatio (%)CategoryRatio (%)CategoryRatio (%) 1Withstand setbacks30.61Optimistic31.13Withstand setbacks28.21Optimistic28.30 2Optimistic29.59Withstand setbacks27.59Optimistic27.20Withstand setbacks28.30 3Ambitious22.45Ambitious17.69Ambitious19.90Ambitious17.30

As to practice teaching, everyone believes it is necessary and the internship should last at least for half a year. Continuing education and training work is very important for pharmacy graduates of all levels and more than 90% of the employers agree that there is a need for continuing education and training.

4 Conclusions

Firstly, the distribution of pharmacy graduates of all levels can tell what qualities they should have in recent years.

Through the analysis of the data from China’s pharmaceutical Yearbook, we find that enterprises accept most of the pharmacy graduates, and the proportion is rising year by year[1]. The employment of junior college graduates in enterprises accounts for two thirds of the total, the employment of undergraduates in enterprises accounts for about a half of the total. In 2002, the employment proportion of graduate in enterprises was 29.91%, and the number rose to 46.52% in 2010. The employment proportion of students with PhD in enterprises in 2002 was only 6.15%, but in 2010, this proportion increased three times, which reached by 19.06%. The employment proportion for pharmacy graduates of all levels in enterprises increases year by year, and enterprises accept pharmacy graduates of different levels. This shows enterprises’ strong demand for pharmacy graduate of all levels.

Secondly, we should not only pay attention to students’ professional knowledge but also strengthen their moral character education.

Pharmacy is a highly specialized discipline. Therefore, employers pay more attention to the pharmaceutical knowledge for pharmacy graduates of all levels. And the knowledge structure of the students are different in each level, for lower level students, their practical ability and marketing knowledge are more important, while for higher level students, the management ability is needed. At the same time, employers also focus on students’ moral quality. This is because medicine is closely linked with morality, which plays an important role throughout all aspects of medicine production and circulation[2]. In the process of drug research and development, researchers should pursuit the unity of truth and goodness without violating the patent rights, they should keep research secrets. In the process of production, ethics, social public opinions, conscience and work ethics are all the soul mate for medicine practitioners. Producers must keep this in mind that drug users and product quality are the most important part. In the circulation, the salesman should do not exaggerate the efficacy, and they should introduce the side effects and adverse reaction. So the higher pharmaceutical education should explore a feasible mode of moral education for students.

Thirdly, we should attach importance to practice teaching.

The Ministry of Education put forward thirty suggestions to improve the quality of higher education in 2012, which clearly proposed to strengthen the practice education. Practice teaching is an important link of teaching work in higher pharmaceutical education, because it is the first attempt for students to apply theory to practice. However, in recent years, it is difficult for pharmacy students to have practice teaching. There are several reasons. First, there are strict quality requirements in the workshop for raw materials, equipment, personnel, production process, packaging and transportation and quality control. So drug manufacturing enterprises are not willing to allow students to practice in the production workshop, which may disrupt the normal order of production. Second, because of heavy school work most pharmacy undergraduate students do not have enough time to have teaching practice which means that students can not provide real labor helps for enterprises. Therefore, enterprises do not want to accept students’ practice. It directly leads to the low effect of teaching practice in that pharmacy students mostly visit the factory, or even just watch the video of pharmaceutical production. They are unable to experience the production process personally. Pharmaceutical institution of higher learning should explore a feasible cooperation framework with enterprises, and at the same time, practice teaching plan should be made carefully, which should reflect the importance of practice teaching. More time should be given to teaching practice.

Fourthly, we should rely on resource advantage to construct and perfect the continuing education platform.

Continuing education aims at all members of society who have achieved a formal school education, and it is a training activity mainly for the adults to participate in. It can update their knowledge and abilities and it is an important way to improve their quality of life. In the developed countries, continuing education is as important as formal education. In the States, to ensure the quality of practitioners, all the state governments adopt license review system and continuing education system for medical doctors, unqualified doctors’ licenses will be revoked. The state of Michigan requires that doctors should have at least 150 hours continuing education related to their jobs within three years when they start their work. Otherwise, they can not apply for further license in the future. The state of California requires that medical practitioner should complete continuing education courses for 50 hours every two years, or they are not qualified to apply for license again[3].

With China’s sustained economic growth, upgrading industrial structure and new emerging technologies, the requirements of workers skill are high. It has become an inevitable choice for workers to obtain a technical qualification or certificate by participating in continuing education to improve their skills, and the higher education provides this opportunity for them[4]. First, we must attach importance to continuing education and take it into the pharmacy education system. Second, a pharmacy continuing education certification platform should be built to perfect the system for pharmacists who will guarantee the higher continuing education effectively. Third, we should carry out different pharmacy projects, for instance, Shandong University has launched a continuing education plan for national licensed pharmacists. Shenyang Pharmaceutical University has also proposed several training programs such as drug GMP certification training and drug management training. But compared with the America pharmacy continuing education programs, universities in China carry out the training programs to meet the market demand without the national guiding. So, we should expand the pharmacy continuing education programs for pharmacy staffs based on national continuing education system.

[1] LUO Yu-jing, WU Chun-fu. The Employment Analysis of China Higher Pharmacy Graduates in Recent Years [J]. Asian Journal of Social Pharmacy, 2012, 7 (4): 254-257.

[2] CHENG Mao-sheng. Medical Ethics [M]. Chinese Medicine Science and Technology Press, 2008: 53-58.

[3] LI Xing-zhou, LU Hai-hong. The International Experience of Continuing Education [J]. Journal of Beijing Normal University (Social Science Edition), 2010, (1): 21-28.

[4] GAO Wen-shu. Chinese Continuing Education Needs in the Lifelong Learning Perspective [J]. Continuing Education Research, 2009, (5): 1-4.

Author’s information: WU Chun-fu, Professor. Major research area: Pharmacology, higher education. Tel: 024-23986339, E-mail: chunfuw@gmail.com