UA News

Under a new three-year contract, the UA College of Pharmacy will train two dozen pharmacy faculty from Saudi Arabia.

A new project is getting underway to start clinical training in Arizona to benefit pharmacy faculty members in Saudi Arabia.

The University of Arizona's College of Pharmacy will soon launch the program to train two dozen pharmacy faculty members from King Abdulaziz University in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

During the first three years of the contract, the program will bring in more than $3.4 million to the college to pay for needed personnel and cover other expenses.

The object is to teach the professors more about clinical pharmacy practice and education, so they can then return to Saudi Arabia to further develop their clinical pharmacy education programs.

As far as Michael Katz, coordinator of the UA college's international education efforts, is aware, this is the largest agreement involving international pharmacy faculty training in the United States.

Katz hopes the Saudi Arabia contract spurs a larger international training and education program at the college.

"I believe that since clinical pharmacy practice is more advanced in the U.S., we have a responsibility to provide that experience and training to other parts of the world," said Katz, also a UA clinical associate professor in the College of Pharmacy.

"Part of it is pharmacists helping other pharmacists, or pharmacy educators helping other pharmacy educators," he said. "But really, the bottom line is that this is going to help patients. And if we can improve the training and education of pharmacists in those countries, that's going to translate into better patient care."

The professors will come in three rounds with the first arriving in July.

"What's happened in Saudi Arabia, and also several other countries, is that they're expanding their pharmacy education to be much more like ours," Katz said.

"Prior to this, they had few clinical pharmacists. The Saudi university, which initiated a PharmD program several years ago, felt that the skill level and competency of their new clinical faculty wasn't advanced enough yet to teach students about advanced clinical pharmacy practice," he added.

Each round of eight professors will spend a year doing rotations to acquire internship hours toward becoming licensed as pharmacists in Arizona and learning about pharmacy practice and the healthcare system in the United States.

In the second year, trainees will be placed in residency programs. An optional third year may entail specialty residency training.

The idea for the program came when faculty members from King Abdulaziz University approached Katz at the American Society of Health System Pharmacists Clinical Midyear Meeting more than one year ago.

Hussam I. Kutbi, a faculty member at King Abdulaziz University, said he wanted to study at the UA's College of Pharmacy because it "has a great faculty and is consistently rated in the top 10 American pharmacy schools."

Also, the weather here is similar to that in Saudi Arabia, he noted.

"Furthermore, it is well known that American people are very friendly and open to other cultures," Kutbi said. "I admire the American system of education and practice."