Pharmacy Daily | Time to back pharmacy schools

COMMUNITY pharmacy owners are being urged to work with their local universities to encourage students to pursue careers in the profession.

Welcoming James Cook University's decision expand its pharmacy program to offer it at the institution's Cairns campus, Pharmacy Guild of Australia Queensland Branch President, Trent Twomey, said it was important for the owners to promote the profession to young people.

With Pharmacy Board of Australia registration data for the quarter to 30 Sep showing the number of pharmacists aged 25 years and under being at its lowest level (835)since Dec 2013 (612), Twomey said the demographic issues within the profession needed to be addressed.

"At the moment the demographics of pharmacy are on a bell curve, with my age group (35-39 years) near the top," he said.

"We would prefer that to be more of a pyramid shape."

Twomey noted that other areas of the economy have boomed over the course of the last two decades, which has been a factor in the decreas number of graduates under the age of 25 years entering the profession.

However, he said the COVID-19 pandemic was revitalising interest in healthcare training amongst high school students.

"We're seeing year 12 graduates and postgrads look to health and community service courses," he said.

"At James Cook University [the pharmacy intake for 2021] is the biggest they've had in many years."

While Twomey said the pharmacy workforce was likely to be boosted by the fallout from COVID-19, he encouraged owners to "assist their local universities to recruit students".

"It's important that they promote the profession to students and pharmacy technicians [to encourage them to study pharmacy]," he said.