Project/Research Work In Pharmacy School Guidelines In Nigeria

Preparing for pharmacy school project

School projects/research is a compulsory course that every student in a Nigerian university must do. It is in fulfilment of requirements for obtaining a degree in Nigeria, which include a pharmacy.

Like every other department, project/research in pharmacy is carried out in the last phase of university study, which is at 500 level for B. Pharm. or 600 level for Pharm. D. However, there are things intending pharmacy students who want to do project should consider before venturing into.

The reasons why the National University Commission (N.U.C) approve research/project in universities is to build the student up. The following are the benefits/goals of projects to students in all area of speciality including pharmacy.

Goals Of Project To Pharmacy Students

1. To increase the understanding of research and improve graduates ability to practice evidence-based pharmacy
2. To develop basic tools for conducting research to improve pharmacy practice
3. To provide an advantage to graduates when applying for residences and other advanced practice experience
4. To develop expertise in a specific area

Note: It is a six units credit course

General Guidelines In Starting Project In Pharmacy

Various schools of pharmacy may have different means of sharing students among departments and lecturers. The bottom line is to follow instructions coming from the faculty. However, the most common methods are

1. All projects students put down their names while they are shared among different department and lecturers who serve as supervisors or
2. Students meet with their preferred lecturer

Read Also: How To Become A Pharmacist In Nigeria

A very important tip is to start as early as possible as most projects take a long time. Most students do miss lectures and other school activities during this period. Another thing is that it is easy for project students to lie to lecturers when they maybe turn up late to lectures that they were somewhere doing project their work.

Supervisors are like guides that assist in achieving the overall aim of the project work, which is too enlightened students on how research is carried out. Students are to communicate with their supervisors on time and discuss the topic. In some cases, students are asked to get a topic to work on why sometimes around the lecturer does all that.

Once the topic is known, it is best to get information on the method of carrying out the project. This will provide a brief idea on the materials that will be needed during the project and how expensive the materials are. This will go a long way in helping to estimate the running cost of it.

Pharmacy is divided into 6 departments in Nigeria. Of all of them, only pharmacy administration does not require bench work involving laboratory work. In most time, students from this department use survey method by distributing questionnaires that have to do with their topics to respondents. Such respondents can be fellow pharmacy students, lecturers, medical staffs etc. The other departments engage in either bench work or use survey methods with questionnaire.

At the end of the project work, the student is expected to type and submit his findings to the supervisor before a set deadline. The work of the supervisor is to see if the work was done appropriately and written report accurate. All noted corrections must be adjusted by the student before defence date.

The defence can be of two types; internal and external defence.

Internal Defense:

In this case, the student will have to explain what he knows on the topic he/she work on and how he carried out the work before lecturers from that department. However, in some cases, lecturers from other departments are invited. The supervisor will be there. Supervisors have about 30 % mark to the award of which a student that impress such a supervisor may get as high as 25 % or even more. What they look at most time is the composure of the student during the period of the project to the internal defense. However, it should be noted that not all departments do internal defense since it is optional.

External Defense:

This is compulsory as an external professor of the course from another university known as the external supervisor will be invited. External supervisors are rotated every two years. He/she will ask the students what they know of their topic and how they carried out their work.

External supervisors consider factors such as dressing, typed report, composure, and confidence when awarding mark. They hold a whopping 70 % of the total score.

Choosing The Right Topic

If a student has the freedom to choose a department, then this part of this write-up will be so beneficial. This is because pharmacy is made up of six departments, which must be studied. The various departments though intertwined have different kinds of project work relating to the course itself. The cost of doing the project in some departments are more expensive than in others.

Pharmacognosy And Traditional Medicine

Pharmacognosy can be defined as the study of medicines of crude drugs produced from natural sources such as plants, microbes and animals. This includes analysis of their biological, chemical, biochemical and physical properties.

Projects in this department are simply based on research on the efficacy of natural compounds. It involves mainly extractions of compounds from natural sources and their efficacy in treating human diseases.

For example, my project work was to find out if a plant species known as Euphorbia Gramineae Linn, a plant whose part is used in part of South America for treating cancer locally have anticancer properties. Extract from the roots was added to beakers containing tadpoles and the rate of killing was measured as a function of activity. This can be attributed to killing cancer cells.

However, a positive result here is not an indication that the extract is anti-cancerous in nature. This is just a starting test, which can further be studied using more direct approach using real human cancer cells. In addition, the result does not show the toxicity of the extract to human cells.

 Bioassays of extracts of different parts of plants for various biological activities e.g thrombolytic, neurological, antidiabetic, diuretic etc.

Pharmacology And Therapeutics

Pharmacology can be defined as the study of drugs and how they affect the body. This means creating chemicals medicinal substances and analysing the effects both benefits and harms.

The activity of projects student here is a step ahead of Pharmacognosy students. Preclinical studies start here after extractions. Here a living animal, preferably white albino rat is giving a dose of an extract, which can be increased as time goes on. This is to cure the disease in the animal.

The disease is induced in the animal by giving the animal some level of the causative agents. This can vary from microbes to chemical agents. The weight of the animal is put into consideration. The route of administration can vary depending on what is being studied.

The toxicology effects including chemical and physiological effects in the rate is observed and documented

Pharmaceutical Microbiology

Is that part that is responsible for ensuring medications do not contain harmful levels of microbes such as bacteria, yeast, moulds etc. it also deals on how a product will react in case of contamination.

Research/project work here generally involve working with different microbes. The work here could range from trying to check the kind of microbes in a particular location or the dominating species. Locations can be in the human body, in a food product etc.

Projects student engage in taking samples from the location they want to study by scraping or using special tools known as swoop. The swoop is introduced into a nutrient broth that supports the growth of microbes at the right temperature and other favourable conditions. It is cultured for some days and the resulting microbial growth is studied by testing the microbes present using reactions with certain chemicals.

The type of microbe that grew and the level of growth will indicate several things concerning the location. This is what most medical laboratories do to test for diseases.

Pharmaceutical Chemistry

This is the study of drugs and drug development, discovery, delivery, absorption, metabolism and more. There are elements of biological analysis, pharmacology, pharmacokinetics, and pharmacodynamics.

Projects students are more concern with the chemical used in treatment than any other thing. They usually study what some medications contain and the amount used for each compound. It also involves analysing the stated doses of standard drugs.

For example, a liquid medication was claimed to contain 200 mg of sugar. This can be analysed by using the measured amount from the sample.

Other activities of project students also involve studying different chemical compounds in an extract. Thus can be done in a chemistry laboratory by separating extracts into various compounds and then analysing the various compounds.

Project Description

Synthesis of different new medicinal drugs e.g. Schiff Bases synthesis. Computational Chemistry -Pass prediction ( Prediction of activity spectra for substances) -Molecular docking

Pharmaceutics And Industrial Pharmacy

They turn a chemical entity into medication to be used safely and effectively by patients. They use special measures to help them achieve therapeutically relevant amounts at their sites of actions.

The measures include adding excipients to active pharmaceutical ingredients (A.P.I). Excipients include binders, colours, sweeteners, etc.

Most project students work on new excipients or new processing techniques. The excipients under review may be a new type of binders and how effective compared to already existing ones. This can be done by producing the drug in the said dosage form e.g. tablet and testing how effective the new excipient is e.g. binder. Since binders are excipients that hold a tablet together during storage, the drug is tested to see if the binder actually is good by dissolution test. If the compound dissolves too fast, it will be probably friable and when it is too slow, it may take ages to dissolve in the stomach.

Project Description

Formulation of drugs of different dosage forms • Comparative studies of different drugs on different pharmaceutical parameters i.e. pk and pd • Drug degradation studies

Clinical Pharmacy And Pharmacy Administration

Is the branch of pharmacy that patient care that optimise the use of medication and promotes health, wellness, and disease prevention including the business part of pharmacy.

Most projects students prefer this department when the project is a concern because it does not require bench work. They simply use questionnaires that are tailored to give answers to their topic. In most cases, it is also the cheapest to run a project since most of the questionnaires are given to respondents that are within the location.

The result of the questionnaire is analysed using software such as SPSS in Windows operating system.

Take, for example, a project on the incidence of malaria on different levels of students in Delta State University; a questionnaire will be distributed to each level of study from any department. The answer from respondents will determine the level that experience malaria more. The result is analysed at the end.

Project Description

Surveys of new drugs and novel therapeutic approaches, • pharmacotherapy reviews and controversies • pharmacokinetics • drug interactions • drug administration

Adverse Drug Events • Medication safety • Pharmacy education • Rational use of drugs

Conclusion

Most times in pharmacy, choosing a project department can be challenging and difficult even for students who have spent years there. The reason is that most students want to save cost and time. However, the cost aspect can be avoided but saving time really depends on both the project student and the supervisor.
One more thing. The project description here is all about bench work. However, projects fall into three categories which are bench work, survey and recent trends. Check back on this blog on more information that will deal on that.

Read Also: Courses In Pharmacy School In Nigeria

Hope you will have an easy project for your B. Pharm. or Pharm. D. degree.

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