Clinical Pharmacy Service Development

The CPSD course is delivered face to face on campus and in clinical settings. The main themes are:

• Clinical Pharmacy
• Professional Development and Education
• Public Health
• Leadership and Service Design
• Research

These themes run across 5 modules with a central theme of Global Citizenship, to help graduates develop as global citizens and to positively impact patient care, pharmacy services, practice, and policy.

Within the clinical pharmacy theme, you will benefit from expert clinical pharmacist input with real patient cases and will build your knowledge and skill of care planning, prioritisation and clinical reasoning to justify and defend your care plans. You will explore the use of clinical guidelines across a variety of clinical areas, interpret and act upon laboratory and monitoring data and address the care needs of diverse patients with a person-centred approach to delivering clinical services.

Within the professional development theme, you will learn about adult learning theories and practical techniques to develop the expertise needed to design and deliver education and training programmes, to upskill yourself, your pharmacy team, and colleagues within a multidisciplinary team.

In the public health and leadership themes, you will consider aspects of local and global health, health inequalities and service-related aspects of being a clinical pharmacy practitioner. You will cover the skills needed to implement, and systematically evaluate clinical pharmacy services and the leadership, management and organisational aspects of service design, innovation and delivery. Within the research theme, you will develop practical experience of designing a research project and disseminating research findings.

Learning Methods

The course will facilitate your learning through a variety of teaching and learning experiences including: patient case-based learning (on campus and on placements), portfolio development through self-reflective practice, peer to peer learning and sharing clinical practice experience, research roundtable discussions, the use of simulation-based learning within our dedicated Pharmacy Simulation Centre and Clinical Skills Centre, expert panel discussions, live debates, team-based learning, and clinical placement visits.

The course is delivered over 3 days a week to allow sufficient time for self-directed study and consolidation of learning as you transition into postgraduate study.

Activity Summary

• Seminars - 8-12students per group for 2hours up to5 times per week, timetabled over 3 days
• Tutorials - 8-12students per group for 2 hours per week
• Project Supervision - One on one and small group supervisionfor 2 hours per week

How long is a Clinical Pharmacy Service Development course?

The Clinical Pharmacy Service Development MSc can be successfully completed in 12 months,with the option to carry out the final part of the MSc research project in home country as part of the ‘study away’ arrangements on the course.

Independent Study

To help you transition into postgraduate study as an independent learner, the course includes a ‘Resilient Learner Series’ of bespoke study material and seminars. The RLS includes support for academic writing, building resilience, workload planning, developing self-reflective practice, library skills and networking skills which are delivered within the CPSD course and tailored to the needs of each cohort.

Assessment

You will be assessed through a variety of modes: written essays, oral defence, portfolio and research report. Each of the 4 modules has one unit of assessment to ensure the assessment load is manageable, with the 5th research module having a research report and viva element of assessment

Typically students are assessed in each year:

• 2 written assignments, including essays
• 1 dissertation
• 1 portfolio
• 2 oral assessments

Feedback

We aim to provide you with feedback within 20 working days of hand-in for all written exams, coursework and practical exams.

Staff Delivering on This Course

The CPSD course is delivered by General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) registered pharmacists, clinical specialists, and experienced academic staff, to create a vibrant and stimulating curriculum. You will benefit from expertise from the School of Pharmacy and Life Sciences and from the award-winning Business School of The Year (2020), Aberdeen Business School, which holds an AACSB accreditation achieved by only the top 5% of institutions globally. The course aims to be inclusive, nurturing, and relevant to student’s own areas of practice. The course ethos is very much student-centred and developed in partnership with our students.

Placements

You will be provided with short periods of practice experience focused on the delivery of clinical pharmacy services to patients in a range of practice settings. These periods are a compulsory component of the course and will be arranged by the University and are unpaid. Experienced clinicians provide supervision and additional teaching in a clinical setting during these periods of experience enabling you to put theory into context.

Job Prospects

As the course is designed for qualified pharmacists, our graduates usually return to their area of practice or home country, equipped with the expertise and confidence to design and enhance innovative pharmacy services, to take up senior clinical roles or leadership roles within Health Ministries or Government education institutions and others go on to undertake further study such a PhD or the Overseas Pharmacist Assessment Programme (OSPAP) to practice as a pharmacist in the UK.