BPSA Annual Conference 2016 Cardiff

“Annual conference is a great opportunity to network with leaders of our future profession, as well as with students from all around the UK, making new friends along the way. Everyone should experience annual conference at least once!” – Amy Hume year 2 student

“Fun, indescribable in words, must go, opens opportunities, chance to meet new people & network”  - Toh Phang Sum year 4 student

This year's annual conference was held in Cardiff the capital city of Wales, it was a full week conference with Conference Business in the morning where we debated about motions such as "School of Pharmacies should arrange more placements", " All medicines should state allergy ingredients on the box" or "Pharmacy First schemes should be at a national level". Each delegate would then listen or give speeches for the motion, against the motion or abstaining from voting the motion. Delegates could also ask questions for clarification, debate about the motion and then ultimately vote upon it. Once a motion has passed, it becomes BPSA policy for the next three years and the BPSA executive committee does their best to implement the motions by speaking to School of Pharmacies, General Pharmaceutical Council GPhC and other relevant organisations.

Apart from that we have different theme social nights where you dress up and have fun, meeting new people from other universities, Royal Pharmaceutical Society RPS  and much much more.

On BPSA day we learned many skills, fine-tuned our CV and learnt tips to prepare for interviews as well as had the opportunity to talk to various people from companies such as GSK, Boots, Community Pharmacies, Pharmacist Support, NPA and much much more.

I found myself benefiting tremendously from attending Annual Conference as I connected with new friends, learned new things and created lasting friendships. Annual conference is a very good opportunity and if possible you should go at least once during your time studying pharmacy.

Malaysia Campus BPSA day

Sum Sharing his experience throughout the 4 years MPharm Degree, extracurricular work, summer placements and interview tips.

During Easter 2016, the three of us (Sum, Natalie and Millie) flew over to the Malaysia campus and gave presentations about our experience doing the MPharm Course, Introduction to BPSA and CV/ Interview Preparation Workshops to both the 1st & 2nd Years.

Millie 2nd Year Introducing the BPSA
Natalie 3rd Year CV & Interview Preparation
Sum 4th Year Experience Share as a 2+2 student.

Millie gave a brief introduction to the BPSA, the competitions involved as well as area conferences and annual conferences. She later explained how the the BPSA represents Pharmacy students, helps and support all students studying a UK pharmacy degree. Sadly the audience was intent on listening and our photographer forgot to take a photo.

CV & Interview Preparation Workshop.
Natalie talking about how to write a CV that stands out from the crowd, which is essentially the ticket to getting an interview and then following up on how to prepare for the interview. She explained a CV is a standard 2 full A4 page document and how to structure the relevant sections such as summer placements, work experience and skills. Later she taught about how to prepare for the interview such as reading through your CV,  learning more about the place you are applying to as well as leaving a good impression with the interviewer.

Sum elaborating further about common interview questions such as "Strengths & Weaknesses", the way to answer is to acknowledge any weaknesses you currently have, what are you doing about it to change or improve and what you have learnt so far or achieved.

For example: One of my weakness is I  talk too fast and I struggle with giving speeches, in my first year running for PharmNotts Committee Position as Public Relations I lost to another candidate by one vote as he was the better speaker.
Therefore, I joined the public speaking society to learn and improve my presentation skills .
Recently at a national scale BPSA  Annual Conference in Liverpool 2015, I gave a wonderful speech for a motion which lead to a standing ovation of 200 members present. I have learnt from this experience and worked hard to improve upon my weakness and will be able to speak better in front of people during my pre-registration year,

Q&A session and meeting with the Johnson & Johnson winners who went to BPSA annual conference in Liverpool 2015 and Cardiff 2016.

All in all, this is our last BPSA event we did this year , and we felt great as the first and second years benefited from these presentations and found it helpful, informative and beneficial. 

BPSA Eastern Area Autumn Conference 2015 - Personalised Medicine

The first BPSA eastern area conference of the year was held at the University of Lincoln and focused on the topic of personalised medicine - a subject that is sure to affect pharmacy future practice!

Students received talks from 4 different guest speakers, each specialized in a different area of healthcare. 

Professor Munir Pirmohamed was the first speaker and opened the conference with a general talk on the importance of personalised medicine, the differences in human DNA and gave examples of circumstances when personalised medicine is important. 

Michelle Lam, the lead diabetes and endocrinology Pharmacist at Hull and East Yorkshire Hospitals, focused on different treatment options for diabetes and how the suitability differs from patient to patient, and why this is.

"I gained an insight into how personalised medicine impacts upon Pharmacists and the profession and how it may affect me in the future - a very positive day!"

Rachel Wild, 2nd year student

Professor Somnath Mukhopadyay focused on the role of personalised medicine in children’s asthma and allergies. He gave an example of the role of filaggrin in the skin and how its content may differ from child to child, resulting in the need for different treatment.


"Today really helped me put into perspective the way that pharmacy is going, it's heading towards a more patient centered future which can only be for the better. I really enjoyed the conference."

Emily Rose, 2nd year student

Nottingham students at the University of Lincoln

BPSA Workshop

Hi again! It's been a long while since we posted anything new. Last week, we conducted some workshops for our juniors from Year 1 and 2 in the University of Nottingham, Malaysia Campus! Every year, the BPSA reps in PharmSoc will conduct sessions with the junior years to talk about BPSA and also conduct workshops to help students on stuffs such as OSCEs and CV-writing. So here we are, doing our part for the students!

We explained to the students how the BPSA works, and also how the BPSA membership can benefit them. At this moment, Sean was explaining about the different regions of BPSA administration across the UK. Other things covered included the BPSA Professional Development Scheme (PDS), about Annual Conference and also access to resources such as PJ Online and CPPE learning tools.

Briefing with the Year 2 students. Apologies, we forgot to take pictures for the Year 1 sessions!

CV workshop as part of our time spent with the Year 2's. We learnt a lot from our experiences in the UK, hence we taught our juniors how to improve on their CV to make them stand out from other "average CVs".

Group activity during the workshops.

We're glad that students found the sessions informative and useful. Sad to say, this is our final assignment in our term as BPSA reps (sobs!). Having said that, we hope that this good work will be continued by the two newly-elected BPSA reps for the year 2015/2016: Dayana and Phang Sum!

Finally, we would like to express our gratitude for your support for BPSA and also to us throughout our term in office. It was a great year, and we hope you will continue to support BPSA, just as how it has supported us in our academic years.

BPSA Eastern Area Autumn Conference 2014 - Haematology

Updates and pictures from the recent BPSA conference! In this post, we'll be adding in comments from our very own coursemates. Let's hear what they have to say about this event!

The event was a great success, with a turnout of more than 300 delegates. Kudos!

Michael Champion, the Eastern Area Coordinator who organized this event, kick starting the show!

The Centre for Pharmacy Postgraduate Education (CPPE) group delivering the first talk on "Advances in anticoagulation".

"I thoroughly enjoyed the BPSA conference at the University of Hertfordshire. The sessions were very interesting, particularly the interactive session by CPPE looking at the advances in anticoagulation and looking at case studies. I now have a greater understanding of alternative anticoagulants such as: rivaroxaban and the limitations of warfarin. During the day I had the opportunity to talk to pharmacy students from different years which was useful. This was my first conference and I hope to attend future conferences. "

- Rachel Wild, 1st year student.

Honorary BPSA life-member, Vilius Savickas, giving out hot tips for pharmacy placements and the pre-reg year. 

"'I think I speak for most of us when I say, as a first years, attending a conference about a subject we have a limited knowledge about was a little bit daunting. However, I think the day gave us a good insight into things to come in our studies e.g. the International Normalised Ratio (INR) and its relevance, unfamiliar drug names (and their respective uses) and a brilliant presentation on an opportunity for summer placements in the Eastern Area. Many of the sessions were interactive (even humorous at times!) and the chance to win a shiny new textbook is always exciting. I, myself was very close, by having more bottle than most of the lecture hall, unfortunately a tricky pharmacology question about low-dose aspirin stood in the way of a new copy of 'FASTtrack Pharmacology' and I. All in all an exhausting yet enjoyable day, roll on the next one!’"

- Nicholas Kelly, 1st year student

A session by Ms. Narinder Kaur-Bring from the University of Hertfordshire, on the "History of blood".

"I had a great time at my first BPSA conference on Haematology. The case studies we took part in, held by the CPPE, really helped to consolidate my knowledge on haematology, and taught me some important new counselling points to tell patients about previous and new anticoagulants. It was fascinating to hear about the history of warfarin and to find out it was previously rat poison! The final session on shaping pharmacy for the future opened my eyes to some important issues surrounding pharmacy practice and the new steps that will be made to provide change for future pharmacists. Overall it was a very insightful day and gave me the chance to learn more about an area of pharmacy that I was interested in."

- Holly Meegan, 2nd year student.

David Branford from the RPS, discussing about the future of pharmacy and the "Five Year Forward View" paper by NHS England, which sets out how the health service needs to change in this new age of healthcare.

Nottingham, Hurrah!

Science into Practice Conference 2014

"This is the largest turnout for a BPSA conference!" These were the words of Annie Sellers, the organizer for this year's Science into Practice Conference at the University of Manchester. And a whopping 80+ students were from Nottingham! Well done guys!

In the wee hours of the morning, we boarded the Knight Bus heading for "Hogwarts".

After a 2-and-a-half hour journey, we reached early, too early in fact. (Doors aren't even open yet)

 I have to say, I've never seen such a big turnout for a BPSA conference.

I admire all these students who are willing to sacrifice their Saturday time to be here! Kudos!

Stephen, the Public Relations Officer of BPSA, briefing us before the talks.

Ruth Newton from the British Pharmaceutical Nutrition Group, giving an insight into nutrition in the clinical setting. She talked about the need to screen patients who require nutritional management, the various nutrition replacement methods, and typical examples of formulating nutritional products (like how heparin interacts with fats in TPN bags).

Have a go at the MUST score, which is used to identify adults who are malnourished.

http://www.bapen.org.uk/pdfs/must/must_full.pdf.

Dr Mike Davies, an LJMU lecturer who also did his pharmacy degree in Nottingham (woohoo!), talks about a new company he helped started up, Pulmorphix. Dr Davies, once upon a time attended a pharmaceutical conference. He heard the conference speaker said that there was no official method to test the dissolution of inhaled drug particles within a simulated pulmonary environment, whch then lead to him coming up with ideas of constructing a lung biosimulator, getting grants and investments to bridge the gap in the market. Hence, Pulmorphix was born. If you're wondering whether pharmacists are capable of becoming inventors, this is a key example to refer to. 

Watch more about Pulmorphix here! http://vimeo.com/83229937

Dr Dave Doughty, Director of Dosage Form Science at GSK, also gave a talk on product design. She discussed about the processes of formulating a simple tablet, from micronizing the API to film coating, and expanded on the important components of each step in the manufacturing line. There is much more than just compressing powders into granules and then into tablets, such as the hygroscopic profile of the API, compression profile, polymorphism, compatibility with excipients....just too much to cover in this paragraph!

Lunch time! Look at that queue!

One particularly deep and elaborate talk was by Dr Christy Hunter about Polymers in Nanomedicine. Sounds like something in the future? In fact, this has already been implemented in many marketed medicines, such as Doxil (using PEGylated liposome), Taxol (using micelles) and Abraxane (using albumin nanoparticles). He also mentioned about altering the molecular weight of polymers to give different biological activity, such as the poloxamines and poloxamers. A new concept that we learnt was that some polymers (such as PEG) were proven to activate the complement system of the immune system, which could explain the occurrence of anaphylaxis in some patients when using PEG-containing medicines.

On a separate session, Dr Doughty explained to us about the industrial pre-reg opportunities in the UK, This information pack can be found on the BPSA website (courtesy of the pharma companies who compiled it), so make full use of it to understand better what is out there for you to choose.

And lastly, a talk by Andrew Trans, an ex-Nottingham student who did his pre-reg in a split hospital/industrial placement. One really unique tip he shared with us, is that if you are really keen to work in the industrial field, there are many ways to enter the industry apart from the pre-reg scheme. There are some graduate training schemes, direct entry after graduation, or you may even start from another department, such as sales, and work your way in (which Andrew is currently doing)! There are also numerous (smaller) pharma companies, besides the big names like GSK, Pfizer, MSD etc., that may present opportunities to you. Try calling up the manufacturers listed at the back of the BNF. They may have job vacancies available for you!

Some found it tiring, some felt that the lectures were too deep. Nonetheless, it was a great first experience for many. Cheers!

Local Practice Forum (LPF) 1st Year welcome event

Hi there! As this is the first post for the academic year 2014/2015, we wish all freshers a warm welcome to our blog! And for returning students, welcome back! Do check our blog regularly as we will keep you posted about our experiences of the BPSA events this year.

The Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Local Practice Forum held its first event to welcome the new students. So what is the LPF? The LPF is a local network of Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS) members, who come together at regular local meetings to:

• ·         promote and share best practice
• ·         demonstrate local leadership
• ·         help influence country boards
• ·         provide local peer-to-peer support

In other words, a great place to meet and interact with other pharmacy students and pharmacist from your local region (i.e. Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire)!

There was an LPF session held in March. Have a look at the blog post about it here. http://bpsa-experience.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/rps-local-practice-forum-getting.html

The 1st year welcome event was lead by our very own lecturers, Mr. Gautam Paul and Mr. Tom Gray, as well as Lauren Rose, a qualified pharmacist who is also an alumnus of our university (and ex-vice president of BPSA)! You really get a lot of good speakers coming to the LPF, so don't miss out on future events!

Getting ready for the session

One of the things emphasized in this session, apart from introducing the Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS) and its various support avenues, is that as students, you are also a member of the BPSA, and the RPS, hence you gain all the support and resources from the RPS FOR FREE! No membership fees, free access to the MEP, Pharmaceutical Journal, RPS resources and of course, being part of the LPF!

So make full use of these support while you are a student! After all, RPS is YOUR Professional Body!

Have a look at this video in the link http://www.rpharms.com/what-s-happening-/news_show.asp?id=1304 and be proud of what RPS, and the profession of pharmacy has achieved over the years!

Peace out!