COVID-19 is fuelling international demand for access to Monash University's web-based pharmacist training platform, MyDispense.
Speaking during an International Pharmaceutical Federation (FIP) webinar on Wed, Monash University Faculty of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences Lecturer, Dr Vivenne Mak, revealed there had been an increase in the number of universities rolling out the free online education platform.
"Over the last few weeks the platform have been rolled out across pharmacy schools in the US, Jamaica, even in Australia and Kuwait, because of coronavirus," she said, with the expansion taking the total number of schools using the platform to over 120, with some 18,000 students worldwide using it.
Mak explained that MyDispense allows pharmacy students to practice their professional skills "in a safe online environment", without the need to be on campus.
"You can use it anytime, anywhere and all that's required is an internet connection," she said.
Mak told the webinar that the platform had evolved from being focused on dispensing in community pharmacy settings to providing a broad range of scenarios including in virtual hospital environments.
"Students can undertake scenarios where patients can present with a prescription or self-care requirement, but they can also be challenged with validation tasks, requiring them to check the work of virtual colleagues for accuracy, legality and medicines safety," she said.
"Around the world people have used it to teach ethics, cold storage, cold chain requirements and scheduling, a lot of different activities."
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