Pharmacy at Trinity College Dublin

Pharmacy is the study of all aspects of drugs, both natural and synthetic in origin, including their chemistry, their uses in medicines, and how they work within the body. Pharmacists work in a variety of settings – community pharmacies, hospitals, long-term care facilities, and within the pharmaceutical industry, to name just a few. In many respects, their role as a key healthcare professional is to help people achieve the best results from their medications.

Pharmacy: The course for you?

While this degree is an essential requirement if you wish to practise as a community or hospital pharmacist, Pharmacy at Trinity opens up a wide variety of professional opportunities in both industry and the wider healthcare sector. A strong interest in science is important to fully enjoy the course.

Pharmacy at Trinity

Trinity is ranked in the top 50 universities in the world for Pharmacy and Pharmacology (QS World University Rankings by Subject 2019). The School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences has world class facilities with research space in the Trinity Biomedical Sciences Institute (TBSI), which develops Trinity’s leadership position in immunology, neuroscience and cancer. The School also has purpose built teaching spaces in the Panoz Institute, including the Boots Unit, a technology-enhanced learning space which allows students to dispense drugs and develop communication skills.

Structured professional placements (unpaid) are integrated throughout the new programme and these take place in second, fourth and fifth year. A particular strength of the Trinity programme is the undergraduate research project, which may take place abroad and gives students the opportunity to develop focused laboratory or field research with one-to-one supervision.

Graduate skills and career opportunities

As an expert in the discovery, development and optimal use of medicines, many career paths are open to pharmacists. Your career prospects as a Pharmacy graduate are excellent. Employment opportunities exist in community, hospital and industrial pharmacy, as well as in state services such as medicines licensing. In addition, you can opt to undertake research, or apply for entry to one of the postgraduate courses in hospital, industrial or community pharmacy. See: www.pharmacy.tcd.ie/postgraduate for further details.

Your degree and what you’ll study

The Pharmacy syllabus has been designed to provide you with an all-round education in both the basic and pharmaceutical sciences and in the practice of pharmacy itself. The five-year integrated Pharmacy programme comprises a variety of approaches to teaching Pharmacy including: lectures, seminars, tutorials, workshops, small-group teaching, problem-based learning, site-visits, computer-assisted learning, web discussion boards, wikis, online group assignments, communication skills, career planning, clinical case studies, inter-professional learning, laboratory and dispensing practicals, and a research project.

The programme is delivered as a series of integrated modules, examples of which include:

• Physiology
• Natural Sources of Drugs and Substances used in Medicines
• Formulation and Pharmaceutical Technology
• Molecular and Chemotherapeutic Pharmacology and Clinical Therapeutics
• Blood, Cardiovascular and Renal Pharmacology and Clinical Therapeutics
• Neuropharmacology and Clinical Therapeutics
• Physical Pharmacy, Formulation and Pharmaceutical Technology
• Advanced Drug Delivery and Molecular Pharmaceutics
• Advanced Pharmaceutical Chemistry, Drug Discovery and Design
• Addiction Pharmacy
• Practice of Pharmacy and Integrated Pharmacy Skills
• Professional Practice and Public Health
• Organisation and Management Skills

Modules are assessed by final examinations and continuous assessment, such as written assignments, essays, lab reports, OSCEs (objective structured clinical examinations), etc. which contribute to the overall mark in a module. There are approximately 16 hours of lectures, 6 hours of laboratory classes and 1 tutorial per week over the course of the first year. Work experience in clinical and non-clinical settings will take place over all five years of the integrated Pharmacy programme.

In the fourth and fifth year, you will undertake a research project. The following are some examples of research projects which students have undertaken in the past:

• Medicines use and burden in people with intellectual disability
• New targets for old drugs: Development of novel beta-lactams with anticancer activity
• The development of dapsone cocrystals for pulmonary drug delivery

Study Abroad and internship opportunities

We encourage our students (second and third year students) to undertake the summer research placement programme. This programme allows pharmacy students carry out their research projects abroad (UK, Germany, Austria, France, US, Canada) over the summer (12 weeks) as part of their undergraduate degree programme. Students are either funded by the Erasmus programme or the School.

Would you enjoy:

• Combining science with a health care profession?
• Being a healthcare leader in your community?
• Becoming part of a community of scientists advancing knowledge to improve health and healthcare?