Bayer Middle East recently organized a regional training workshop for 200 pharmacists from 11 countries to equip them with the necessary skill sets required to work with patients.

The workshop is part of Bayer Prestige Club’s continuous initiative that aims to encourage the development of pharmacists according to World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Pharmaceutical Federation’s (FIP) seven-star concept, which describes a pharmacist as a caregiver, communicator, decision-maker, teacher, lifelong learner, leader and manager.

The event, organised for the fourth year in a row, saw the attendance of pharmacists from Middle East countries including UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon. For the first time this year, pharmacists from Turkey attended the conference to learn from the Middle East experience.

Through interactive workshops conducted by industry experts, the pharmacists were provided key insight on working with time management, financial understanding and maximizing positivity and minimizing stress.

“Training pharmacists to become experts in providing pharmaceutical care is a part of our on-going global efforts to recognize the important role they play in the healthcare infrastructure to support patient needs,” said Mohamed Galal, vice president- head of Consumer Health Division Bayer Middle East.

“We strongly encourage the development of our pharmacists to become seven-star experts, where pharmaceutical partnership is very important to increase the level of awareness among patients and towards achieving the ultimate goal of providing distinguished service to the patients at Arab World.”

The concept of seven-star pharmacists, which was launched by WHO and FIP in November 2006, is aimed to address the need of pharmacists to meet the ever-increasing health demands--an ever-growing and complex range of medicines, and the evolution of the pharmacist’s role into a more patient-centric approach (known as pharmaceutical care).

The workshop was received with great enthusiasm by the attendees with many of them eager to learn how to solve the challenges and provide best service to patients. – TradeArabia News Service