College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences organizes a seminar on patient safety with Novartis

Wednesday, Oct 05, 2022
College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences organizes a seminar on patient safety with Novartis

On the 4th of October, 2022, The College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences organized a seminar on patient safety as a part of the World Patient Safety Day- 2022 celebration under the theme of “Medications without harm” in collaboration with Novartis. The objective of the event was to orient the pharmacy students on various patient safety-related activities performed by pharmaceutical industries in ensuring the safe use of their medications.

Dr. Nihal Ibrahim, the Head of the Events Committee of the College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, welcomed the delegates from Novartis (Drs. Mohamed Ramadan, Ahmed Salah, Maria Abdou, and Wesam Dawwas) and introduced them to the audience. During the event, Dr. Mohamed Ramadan, the POP Governance Manager, presented “Patient safety practices in Novartis” to the students and emphasized the importance of pharmacovigilance on marketed medicinal products by the company and introduced the various processes in place to ensure patient safety. He also listed the emerging scope of pharmacists in pharmacovigilance and highlighted various pharmacovigilance-related topics such as signal detection methods in pharmacovigilance and the critical role of Pharmacists in identification and reporting of Adverse Events , adverse drug reaction reporting procedures followed by Novartis, etc. During the presentation, Dr. Ramadan also introduced ‘Adverse Events with medical devices’ which is one of the most common un-identified Adverse Events.

A large number of students participated in the event and the seminar sensitized the students on job opportunities available for them in pharmacovigilance and other patient safety-related areas in pharmaceutical industries and prepare them for a potential industry career.

The Dean Prof. Nageeb Hassan commented: Such events are expected to provide early exposure to pharmacy students on various pharmacovigilance-related opportunities available for them in industries.  The College is keen on organizing more such programs to strengthen industry-institute cooperation for the benefit of our students.