Dean, Faculty of Pharmacy
Ain Shams University

             Welcome to the faculty of Pharmacy at Ain Shams University. It is my distinct pleasure to introduce you to the Pharmacy profession. Pharmacy is the health care profession responsible for manufacturing and dispensing medicines, educating patient about their medications and working with clinicians to promote the effective use of drugs. With the unprecedented advances in drug discovery, together with the exciting new interdisciplinary approaches to scientific discovery, it is sometimes difficult to predict the future of pharmacy in the 21st century. One thing is certain, however, there has never been a more dynamic and exciting time for pharmacy.

             The role of the pharmacist has been expanding to where the pharmacist is a key member of the patient-care team responsible for the drug therapy decisions, selection of drug products, providing expert drug information, monitoring and assessing patient adherence and compliance, detecting adverse drug reactions, assessing outcomes of drug therapy, together with various management responsibilities related to drug utilization and drug formularies. Pharmacists are also taking an increasingly active role in the area of prevention and wellness. This is an area that will become more important over time as our knowledge of environmental and genetic diseases expands.

             Today’s Pharmacy student is educated and trained to take advantage of the new and evolving practice roles. Ain Shams University’s Pharmacy student curriculum offers a solid foundation in core pharmacy competencies, and, in addition, provides students with skills including disease and wellness patient management, population management, population management and epidemiology, pharmacoeconomics, outcomes measurement, health services research.

             Many career opportunities are available in community and institutional pharmacy, government services, pharmaceutical industry, teaching, and research; and new opportunities are continuously emerging. Whatever path you choose, it is certain that Pharmacy will provide you with many career opportunities as well as professional and personal satisfaction. But don’t forget that the way of progress is neither easy nor swift, life is not easy for any of us. But what of that? We must have perseverance and above all confidence in ourselves. We must believe  that we are gifted for something, and this thing, at whatever cost, must be attained.