Pharmacy Daily | Colloquium commits to students

PHARMACY and nursing organisations have committed to preparing students to be not just work-ready, but to drive change in primary care.

Following the 2022 Interprofessional Colloquium conference in Sydney last week, the Australian Pharmacy Council (APC), the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Accreditation Council (ANMAC), the Council of Pharmacy Schools of Australia and New Zealand (CPS), and the Council of Deans of Nursing and Midwifery (CDNM) issued a joint statement emphasising the importance of empowering students to deliver future focused primary healthcare.

CPS President, Professor Debra Rowett, said "the modernised health system will be more integrated, efficient, focused on patients and equitable".

"Healthcare is delivered not just in hospitals, or in any single site," she said.

"Our students are going to need to inform this healthcare landscape.

"[They will need to be] not only work-ready, but be ready to change it, to learn from the pandemic and take forward new approaches that truly deliver patient-centred care."

APC CEO, Bronwyn Clark, said the Colloquium program had highlighted how critical students are in mitigating risks and lessening the effects of continuing global issues.

"We believe that when you give students the right tools and give them the confidence and reassurance that they hold the power to create change, then they will want to be disruptors," she said.

"And they will feel confident to make real change.

"But for them to have that mindset, it's up to us as educators to plant those seeds to future-proof our professions."

CDNM President, Professor Karen Strickland, said there was a need for change, noting "if we keep doing the same thing, and looking at the same solutions, we're going to keep getting the same answers".