Are you passionate about student pharmacy? Thinking of joining BPSA as a rep for your School of Pharmacy? Why not check out this timeline sneak-peak of my year! By Ijeoma Imo
September – I attended the first BPSA Southern Area Conference for the academic year 15/16. The conference was held on the Medway Campus. The topic for the day was Oncology Pharmacy. The speakers gave presentations on their day to day activities as Pharmacists working in this specialised area.
During the conference, positions to join the BPSA southern area team as International (IR) and National Representatives for Medway School of Pharmacy (MSoP) were advertised.
Inspired by the conference, I applied to become an International Representative via an online application.
October – I received an email from the BPSA that my application had been successful and I was invited to a training day at University College London (UCL), Pharmacy School.
I was added to a group chat where all representatives from across the southern area were able to connect and introduce themselves. The group also included the southern area co-ordinator and the student exchange officer.
November – I attended a training day hosted at UCL. The training day allowed me to meet others face to face and network with other reps from various schools of pharmacy. The training day consisted of: icebreakers which gave reps the opportunity to familiarise themselves with one another, a presentation was made on the history and goals of the BPSA, expectations and roles of international and national reps. A team competition was also held to create and pitch a health campaign, where I teamed up with the Kings College London IR reps. Our campaign was on “Disability Awareness Day”.
December – My southern area coordinator briefed reps about an upcoming conference on “Developing your Career Pathway”, which we needed to plan and organise.
We also set a date for a skype meeting, in order for reps to form teams, pitch ideas and organise the timetable of events for the conference.
The other international reps and I also had to plan a Public Health Campaign.
January – I gave a presentation to first year MSoP pharmacy students on BPSA’s Student Exchange Programme. This outlined the opportunity for students to gain practical work experience in community, hospital, and industry or University research abroad. This presentation gave me the opportunity to improve on my confidence and communication skills.
February – I gave a presentation to MSoP students about an opportunity to attend the 62nd IPSF (International Pharmaceutical Students Federation) conference in Zimbabwe.
I liaised with my school of pharmacy to get emails sent out to student inboxes, for any students who could not attend the presentation.
20th February 2016 – Day of southern area conference on “Developing your Career Pathway” held at Franklin-Wilkins Building, King’s College London.
- Speakers included those working in a diverse range of sectors in Pharmacy including; hospital, industry and academia.
- Breakout sessions; interactive classes designed to look at how best to set yourself up for a successfulcareer.
- International Reps hosted a Health Campaign during lunch. We signed up students attending the conference to be ‘Antibiotic Guardians.’
- Competitions to win Pharmacy related books were also held throughout the day.
The conference was a success, tickets sold out and over 350 Pharmacy students were in attendance.
The outcome of the conference reinforced the importance of having BPSA reps at every School of Pharmacy, in order to strengthen links between Pharmacy schools, share opportunities with students and exchange ideas.
March –I liaised with the BPSA student exchange officer to find placements in the UK for incoming pharmacy students from abroad. The process included ringing up my previous pharmacy placements to ask if they were willing to host 2 weeks of placement for incoming international students.
June – Launch of NEW BPSA website information sent out to student inboxes.
Check out http://www.bpsa.co.uk/ and apply!
Written by Ijeoma Imo, BPSA International Rep for Medway School of Pharmacy 2015-2016