By Faith Iroh and Nwobodo Chidinma

The President, Pharmaceutical Association of Nigeria (PAN), Comrade Igatta James Chikamso in this exclusive interview with ESUT Monitor enumerated his achievement since he took over the reigns.

Excerpts

A Brief Profile

I am Igatta James Chikamso, a 500 level Pharmacy student in ESUT. I hail from Isi Uzo local government area of Enugu State. I served as the class representative for two academic session in my 100 level and 200 level, served as the general secretary of this association that is Pharmaceutical Association of Nigeria, PAN ESUT chapter. I am the 6th PAN’s president.

 What inspired you to become a leaders in Pharmacy?

What inspired me to be the president was seeing the fact that there are changes that I can implement and decisions that I can influence with my power and seeing the things being an active members of the association and faculty. I have observed the needs of our students. And I knew I could provide the solutions to these needs, which is why my campaign slogan was “Solution”. I contested for the position to bring changes to the faculty, changes that will address the needs of the student.

As the faculty president and the PAN’s president, it has not been an easy one, but by the grace of God we are transcending. We are facing challenge considering that our faculty is in the inchoate stage. Getting people that will support us – that is outsiders is not always that easy. That has been one of our challenges, despite the fact that we didn’t have a complex, moving from the old faculty to here we faced many challenges of settling down and all that.

What initiative have you led or are currently working on to enhance the quality of education and training in your faculty?

When we took off the well-being of our students was our priority, ensuring their comfort and during lectures and other activities. We noticed that there’s a gap between what is taught in the school and real life practices of the pharmacy education. On this note, we decided to organize industrial visit and excursion to pharmaceutical industries, for our students to get view of what is done in the industries, for them to grab the real life experience. It’s called the gap between the town and the gown. Another thing we started – a culture of our student going to TV stations for instance; Afia TV. We do go there to enlighten people on world health issues on special days like World Sickle Cell day or tell them about our roles as pharmacy student and upcoming pharmacist.

We also set up a research hub that is PAN’s research hub. This research hub is meant to equip student with research skills that will help them get to know how to conduct basic research and publish their articles on reputable journals.

I am a strong believer of democracy, we provided opinion boxes and online platform where people can drop their opinions and criticism, so that they can help us improve. We also organize tutorial classes for our students, in case they are having any issues with their courses. We also secured an association secretariat, where administrative work of the association will be done. And we created a Pharmer Edge Committee, as the name implies, it is meant to give our students edge over other students. What this committee does is that they tell them about different job opportunities in pharmacy and how to stand out as pharmacy student. We also created an RX health information network committee. This committee is meant to provide update on health issues, which we do broadcast to educate people. We also empowered our students with digital skills, that will help them to adapt to pharmacy education as no profession is stagnant.

What do you consider as biggest challenge currently facing pharmacy education and how is your faculty addressing them?

  The biggest challenge we are facing now as a faculty is light issue, which has affected our learning particularly practical sessions. Because like I said earlier, this is a new faculty and electricity hasn’t been connected to this faculty, and it has impeded many things. We have met with the VC and he told us that they are having plans to secure a connection for us but we are interceding for a temporary solution that we can’t be like this till a stable solution comes because this has affected water issue because the water supply here depends on light to pump water for us to make use of our toilet and laboratories for us to conduct practicals.

What were your top priorities contesting for the faculty presidency?

 Honestly one of the main things I wanted to do as the president as my top priority was to enhance our students career and professional development. I felt like our students needed to embrace the profession, the conventional practice. I believe that student can do conventional things in a non-conventional way. There are many emerging things that I believe our students don’t know about. I believe we have bright minds and very intelligent students but don’t see opportunities to showcase their intelligence. Some of them don’t end up advancing their knowledge or skills that’s why I said earlier that we are focused on career and professional development and so far we have achieved tremendous change.