The first Libyan Faculty of Pharmacy was established at the University of Tripoli
in 1975, which successively followed by the second one at the University of Benghazi
in 1989.
However, in spite of the limited Libyan population, there is lately an irregular tremendous
increase in the number of local faculties of pharmacy. All of these faculties had
adopted almost an identical pharmaceutical sciences program that offers a Bachelor
of Pharmaceutical Sciences degree.
In 2007, Libyan International Medical University (LIMU) was established as the first
private medical university in Libya with a clear mission to develop medical education
to get competent graduates to satisfy community needs. Since then, Pharmacy Practice
as well as Pharmacotherapeutics was encompassed in the LIMU Faculty of Pharmacy curriculum,
and hence, the offered degree was the Bachelor of Pharmacy in a step that can be considered
as one of the early initiatives toward the development of pharmacy education in Libya.
However, preliminary studies have clearly shown (unpublished data) that stakeholders
are not well satisfied with the outcomes of these pharmacy programs in general due
to lack of competencies that serve community needs. Today's pharmacists must be prepared
to be self-directed and life-long learners who are able to provide pharmaceutical
care to patients according to World Health Organization (WHO) and International Pharmaceutical
Federation (FIP) recommendations.[[1]],[[2]],[[3]],[[4]] Therefore, there is a need for pharmacy programs reform to introduce problem-solving,
critical thinking, communications, and decision-making skills.
In 2016, LIMU was the first university in the country to adopt the PharmD Program
as one of its undergraduate educational programs. Consequently, Faculty of Pharmacy
at LIMU underwent major curricular development, together with the adoption of active
learning strategies, which enhances the implementation of the new program objectives.
LIMU has appointed a consultancy committee for the PharmD Program. Members of this
committee indeed possess relevant international experiences with the task to design
and implement the new curriculum using Canadian benchmarks.
Certainly, the process of curricular reform (patient-oriented) and the employment
of active learning strategies have involved the adoption of disciplines integrating
(horizontal and vertical) curricula throughout all the stages of the program: problem-based
learning (PBL) strategy for foundational stage and hybrid PBL/team-based learning
methodology for the professional stage [[Figure 1]]. Furthermore, experiential training, both introductory pharmacy practice experiences
and advanced pharmacy practice experiences, have been successfully introduced within
the program in different practice settings. In addition, ethics, professionalism,
research methodology, literature evaluation, critical thinking, graduation project,
evidence-based decision-making, interprofessional education, and structured clinical
rotations are the fundamental components of LIMU PharmD Program [details of the program
can be accessed through the following link https://pharmacy.limu.edu.ly/pharmd-program/#Study-Plan-for-PharmD-Program].
Consequently, virtual pharmacy, drug-information center, simulation laboratory, and
clinical skills laboratory are the settings which are used for the implementation
of the program's curricular and extracurricular activities. Besides active learning
methods, LIMU PharmD Program has adopted novel assessment methods as objective structured
practical examinations and objective structured clinical examinations.
Figure 1: Icon of integration of the Libyan International Medical University PharmD curriculum
Recently, LIMU PharmD Program has successfully fulfilled the provisional accreditation
requirements that had been set by the National Centre for Accrediting Educational
and Training Institutions. LIMU is aiming to achieve full accreditation both at national
and at international level with the graduation of the first PharmD batch, which would
be an added value to foster health services in Libya.
