Female Graduate Pharmacists Sweep Prizes At Unizik

EIGHT out of the nine top academic prizes for the best graduating students in the Faculty of the Pharmaceutical Sciences at the Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka were won by three young ladies.

This was made public at the maiden oath-taking/induction of the 18 2010/2011 graduates of the department at the institution at Agulu yesterday.

The top graduating students include Miss Miracle Obiagwu who was the overall best graduating student in the faculty, best in Pharmaceutical/Medicinal Chemistry, best in Pharmaceutica Microbiology/Biotechnology.

Others are the best in Clinical Pharmacy/Pharmacy Management; Miss Esther Okafor, the best in Pharmacy Jurisprudence/Practice; and Miss Ruth Nwezi who graduated as the best in Pharmacology/Toxicology, best in Pharmacognosy/Traditional Medicine and shared the top price in Pharmaceutical Microbiology/Biotechnology with Miss Miracle Obiagwu.

In his keynote address, titled, ‘The 21st Century Pharmacy Professional In Healthcare and National Development,’ the Director General of Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON), Dr. Ikem Odumodu, advocated training of  pharmacists, doctors and nurses together, “so as to start their bonding early in school.”

He took a cursory look at the healthcare situation in the country today and averred that it is still dogged by massive but preventable communicable infective diseases. He added that lifestyles result in worsening health conditions, while poor people die from treatable avoidable ailments.

The Dean, Prof Charles Esimone, in his remarks, said they were poised to repositioning the faculty to be the best in the continent, especially with the students having access to the “world class and GMP Infusion and Non-sterile Juhel Pharmaceutical Factories and the NAFDAC Laboratory at Agulu as part of their routine training.

“They were also exposed to a retinue of visiting foreign professors from Germany, South Africa, Canada and the United States,” he said.

The faculty, he added, has now been approved to run a Masters degree programme in Forensic Science in collaboration with the Nebraska Institute of Forensic Science, United States, beginning next January.

The Vice Chancellor, Prof Boniface Egboka, commended Dr. Ifeanyi Okoye of the Juhel Pharmacy who initiated and built the faculty, the Agulu community which donated the land and others who gave their time energy and money to see the full actualization of the dream.

Okoye encouraged the new graduate inductees to the profession to take on the world “because I am aware of the qualities in each of you. You are among the best anywhere.”

The Registrar of the Pharmacists Council of Nigeria, Ahmed Mora, urged the young graduates even as they embark on the mandatory 12-month internship training which would expose them to practical applications of the theories they were equipped with, not to rest on their laurels.

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By Chuks Collins, Awka