Hello everyone,
My name is Sahid Sahid and I am a non-traditional student completing my elective rotation at ASHP. Through this blog, I wanted to share with you some of my background as an international student and practicing pharmacist. I hope that this blog series will help international students that hope to pursue practice in the US, while for others, it might just satisfy their curiosity on a foreign path.
My pharmacy journey started in a little country on the edge of the equator in West Africa called Sierra Leone (A Portuguese/Italian word meaning Lion Mountain). Little is known about Sierra Leone to the Western world besides what is shown in movies like Blood Diamond and Beast of No Nation. Sierra Leone used to be called “The Athens of West Africa” as it is home the oldest university in the region. It sits right by the Atlantic Ocean surrounded by white sandy beaches, palm trees and the friendliest people in the world. To get a feel of the weather in Sierra Leone, I usually get up very early in the morning during Fall and walk barefoot around the pond in my backyard and inhale all the air I can get in as that is how it feels to be in Sierra Leone all year round.
Pharmacy school in Sierra Leone is an experience that is worth reliving a thousand lives over because it is a very complicated and stimulating experience. Getting into pharmacy school is a very competitive process as the typical competitors are the best students from all over the country and the west African subregion. As if the entry competition is not enough, the typical pharmacy student gets to spend the first 4 years of pharmacy schooling (basic medical sciences) in class with the students pursuing medicine. In addition to taking classes in Anatomy, Physiology and Biochemistry, pharmacy students must add that to pharmaceutical chemistry for a complete course work. With the completion of the Basic medical sciences, pharmacy students get to go into an intermediate (Part 1) and a final year (Part 2) to specialize or be prepared for life in community or hospital pharmacy practice.
Graduation day is akin to a national holiday in Sierra Leone. The walking ceremony is accompanied by a huge fanfare from friends and families all over the country. Most of the students are first generation university graduates so being a part of this ceremony is considered a once in a lifetime experience.
Docta! (creole word for doctor) is what everyone get to call you when you practice pharmacy in Sierra Leone, and every pharmacist remembers the first time someone called them that for their expert opinion. As a community pharmacist, you are seen as the “god of medical advice” within the community and expected to treat all ailments ranging from headache to a heart attack. Patients come to the pharmacy and tell you the medication that they want because their neighbor suffered from something similar and expect you to dispense it no questions asked. Antibiotics are the most requested with significant increase in antibiotic resistance cases reported yearly. However, challenges like these have helped define what the practice is like today and for the better. To help improve on the practice, most pharmacists within my generation had to leave and gain clinical expertise overseas.