Karnali Academy of Health Sciences(KAHS)

1. Introduction
Bachelor of Pharmacy (B. Pharma) is a Four-year undergraduate program designed to introduce
students with the properties and impacts of allopathic and herbal pharmaceutical drugs. The
program helps students in developing the skills essential to manufacture dosage forms, counsel
patients about medication use. In the develop part of the world 97 % pharmacists are working in the
hospital and community setting. But our situation is different. The core pharmacy subjects include
Pharmaceutics, Pharmaceutical Chemistry, Pharmacognosy, herbal medicine, herbal medicine
technology, Pharmacology, Pharmacotherapeutics, Hospital Pharmacy and Community Pharmacy.
Practice change of this magnitude requires appropriate changes in education. Over the past few
decades, there have been significant advances in pharmacy education in many countries aimed at
improving the standard of graduates and their ability to provide a wide range of innovative
pharmaceutical dosage form manufacturing, quality control and patient care services. Advances in
pharmacy education have occurred in curriculum design and pedagogy that include student-oriented
teaching methods that impart the skills to students. Now Nepal adopt the federal political
governance system so, it is necessary that local graduates are focused on meeting basic local
requirements for maintaining a quality medicine manufacturing, quality control, supply chain that
addresses patient needs. Providing pharmacists with advanced skills would enable them to fill a
“needs gap” in all sector of pharmacy practice to improve health care standards.
2. Competencies of B Pharm Graduates of Karnali Academy of Health Sciences
(KAHS)
Implementation of competency-based pharmacy education (CBPE) is a time-consuming,
complicated process, which requires agreement on the tasks of a pharmacist, commitment,
institutional stability, and a goal-directed developmental perspective of all stakeholders involved.
The design of a competency-based curriculum ideally follows a specific sequence from
competencies to learning outcomes, to assessments, to teaching-learning activities.
We have to plan to produce a pharmacy graduate generalist with the balance between the Karnali
specific skills as well as the potential of global mobility. This circumstance forced us to go ahead
with a 5 years Bachelor of Pharmacy course in KAHS. As per FIP more than 95 % pharmacists in
the world are practicing in community pharmacy settings. But our scenario is different. Still.
Pharmacist is not yet recognized as a member of health care team in Nepal.
According to FIP, the core competencies of a pharmacist are:

Bachelor of Pharmacy Curriculum

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1. Pharmaceutical Public Health Competencies: Health promotion and Medicines information
& advice,
2. Pharmaceutical Care Competencies: Assessment of medicines, Compounding medicines,
Dispensing and Monitor medicines therapy.
3. Organization and Management Competencies: Organizational structure, budgeting,
Procurement, Supply chain and management and human resource management.
4. Professional/Personal Competencies: Communication skills, CPD, Professional and ethical
practice, Quality Assurance and Research in the work place
The main job hub of the pharmacists was industrial sector till 2015, but employment in hospital
sector is growing gradually. Community sector is also emerging. So if we only follow the FIP
competencies or western model of pharmacy education only, it will not be practicable at present.
So we want to produce a pharmacist generalist (as other universities of Nepal) with one added
competency as “Pharmaceutical entrepreneurship, manufacturing and quality assurance of
allopathic and herbal recourses as well as their finish formulations. Especially we want to groom
KAHS graduate as an innovator that can take the challenge of developing enterprise, herbal
formulations for the upliftment of the economic status of the people of Karnali.
3. General Educational Goals and Objectives of KAHS B Pharm Program:
The Bachelor of Pharmacy Degree offered by KAHS aims to:
1. Produce graduates who are competent, skillful, resourceful, ethical and professional.
2. Cultivate leadership values and critical thinking in order to produce graduates who are self-
reliant.
3. Produce graduates who are caring, compassionate and show respect and fairness to others
4. Nurture graduates for life-long learning and who are adaptable to socioeconomic, health and
environmental changes.
How to achieve the Herbal medicine focus competency Concept of Pharmacy Graduates of Karnali
Academy of Health Sciences? This curriculum aims to endorse the following subjects with 20
credits theory and 8 credits practical.