Award-winning research: Chowdhury Faruquee, left, graduate student in the Faculty of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences with her supervisor, associate professor Lisa Guirguis.
It's been a very good year for pharmacy graduate student Chowdhury Faruquee.
The PhD student won best research paper award from the Canadian Pharmacists Journal for her systematic review of the scope of research on pharmacists prescribing in Canada.
More recently, Faruquee won best pharmacy practice research poster presentation award at the Canadian Pharmacy Association's (CPhA) national conference in Calgary. She focused on how pharmacist prescribing fits in family physicians' practice in Alberta.
"I was very excited about winning the CPhA award," says Faruquee, a PhD candidate who hopes to finish her studies in 2017. "I knew about the research paper award before the CPhA Conference but I didn't find out about the poster presentation award until after the conference, so it was a nice surprise."
Faruquee's research topic is on the pharmacist prescribing practice in Canada.
"I summarized the published literature about pharmacists prescribing in Canada," she says. "From that review, I uncovered the areas that are not being explored or researched as of yet. So, essentially it's a scoping review of research on pharmacists prescribing in Canada."
Faruquee says while having pharmacists prescribing medications in Alberta is not new, the practice of prescribing is still growing. In April 2007, the scope of practice for Alberta pharmacists increased to allow them to prescribe medications. Other provinces have since followed Alberta's lead.
The award she received for her poster presentation focused on how pharmacists prescribing medication fits within a family physician's practice. There was no previous research on this - at least not any qualitative research - about what physicians thought about this new role and their experience as well as perception on the increase in scope that pharmacists had, so we asked physicians what they thought."
Faruquee interviewed a dozen physicians who had experience with pharmacists prescribing in their practice. She asked questions to uncover the gaps that currently exist and the areas of improvement that are required when it comes to physicians collaborating with pharmacists.
"We developed some knowledge translation tools to help both pharmacists and physicians and we presented that in our poster. We found the results were helpful to both professions and in the end, the goal was to improve the patient's experience of health care service." The study was funded by the Northern Alberta Academic Family Physicians (NAAFP) of the University of Alberta's Faculty of Medicine.
"Two national awards recognizing excellence in pharmacy practice research is an achievement for any researcher and Faruquee has accomplished this in her PhD," says Lisa Guirguis, associate professor and Faruquee's supervisor. "This is a testament to the enthusiasm and commitment she brings to her work at the faculty."
Faruquee says her research is important because it can help increase the adoption rate of pharmacists prescribing.
"We want to accelerate the adoption level among all pharmacists," she says. Faruquee is proud for the recognition she has received and continues to work towards her PhD, which she expects to finish in 2017.