Dear Visitor

The renaissance taking place in the overall health sector in the Kingdom does not coincide with the pharmaceutical services available at the present time, where pharmaceutical services are still incapable of coping with this renaissance. This is due to the suffering of the pharmaceutical service sector from the severe shortage in the number of pharmacists and the level of service provided to patients, where studies affirmed that the job market in Saudi

Arabia needs more than seventeen thousand pharmacist to work in different health sectors until 1445 H (2026), and that the job market is also suffering from a shortage of qualified personnel specialized in the area of Pharmaceutical Sciences. The proportion of the Saudi pharmacists in the governmental and private sectors does not exceed 11% of the total number of pharmacists, which makes job saudization a strategic national demand. Specialized studies indicate that the number of Saudi pharmacists must reach 17,000 pharmacists by the year 2026 according to the recommendations of Manpower Council, i.e., doubling the current number by at least five times to reach the pharmacist : patient ratio of one pharmacist per 2100 inhabitants. The reason for the shortage in the number of pharmacists is that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia had only one College of Pharmacy at King Saud University over a period of 43 years since its foundation in 1379 H (1959). This led to the creation of more than twelve other governmental Colleges of Pharmacy. In the last five years these colleges have not graduated any students so far except that King Abdulaziz University in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia graduated the first batch of pharmacists in the year 1427 H (2007). Given the importance of upgrading the level of pharmaceutical services provided to patients and an as extension for the creation of the Department of Clinical Pharmacy in 1395 H (1975), and keeping pace with global development in pharmacy education especially in the United States the leading country in upgrading the profession of pharmacy have led to the creation of Doctor of Pharmacy Program (Pharm. D). Also the need for obtaining academic accreditation necessitates the development of Doctor Pharmacy program and promoting the Bachelor of Pharmacy in 1428 H (2007) where the two programs go hand in hand in the first four years (105 credit hours) and the total number of credit hours for the Doctor Pharmacy and Bachelor of Pharmacy programs are 201 and 167 credit hours, respectively. The College administration was keen during the development of the academic plan to follow the footsteps of the best five American universities and the academic accreditation standards set forth by the American Council of pharmacy Education (ACPE).

 

Dean of the College

Yosef A. Asiri, Ph.D.