1 October 2016

Last night Dr. Ed Foote, the Pharmacy Practice Department Chair from Wilkes University, joined our team and so far, he is acclimating just fine- no signs of jet lag! We went easy on him today with a nice leisurely morning and then an afternoon of eating, shopping, coffee, shopping, and then eating some more delicious food for dinner.  In the midst of this, I had a very exciting and successful meeting with the Secretary of the Pharmaceutical Society of Uganda (PSU), Sam, and Winnie, the Ugandan Pharmacist coordinator for this trip, about our way forward together. It was a session of brainstorming and planning for a project to demonstrate how the Pharmaceutical Care Skills Lab course is improving the students abilities to interact with patient and physicians to improve safe medication use and health care outcomes. We discussed how we can also document our work with in-service training for practicing pharmacists and eventually work towards changing the pharmacy practice act to include provisions for Pharmacists that provide pharmaceutical care on every patient ward in the hospitals.  Now we just have to get started on writing the protocol and developing the Memorandum of Understanding. This meeting left me with high hopes for this stronger partnership and I’m excited to get to work. Although there are many challenges to improving healthcare in Uganda, we as Pharmacists, can make a difference, one patient and one project at a time!