Visit to the University of Alberta by the dean of Meiji Pharmaceutical University

During the last week of September, the University of Alberta Faculty of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences hosted a three-day visit by Dr. Hirotoshi Echizen, dean of Meiji Pharmaceutical University (MPU) in Kiyose, Tokyo, Japan.  He was accompanied by Dr. Manabu Akazawa, professor of public health and epidemiology at MPU and coordinator of their overseas pharmacy training elective course.

MPU is a private pharmacy university offering a six-year program to train pharmacists, a four-year program to train pharmaceutical scientists and a graduate school of pharmaceutical sciences. Their current enrolment is 2,400 undergraduates and 100 graduate students. The relationship between MPU and the U of A was established in 1993 under the leadership of late U of A pharmacy dean and professor emeritus John Bachynsky.

The purpose of this visit was to discuss the eight-week pharmacy training and English-language program completed by MPU undergraduate students here at our faculty every fall and in the English Language School at the U of A’s Faculty of Education. Other topics of discussion included opportunities for international collaborative research and visitations by undergraduate and graduate U of A students to conduct research or elective fourth-year placements at MPU.

As part of their visit, Drs. Echizen and Akazawa met with pharmacy dean Christine Hughes and other faculty members. Dr. Echizen provided a noon “Spotlight Series” seminar on the educational training offered at MPU while Dr. Akazawa provided a lecture on the Japanese health system and pharmacy practice in Japan in PHARM 312. They also toured the community and hospital practice sites where the eight students from MPU have recently completed their overseas training elective.