Study on Pharmacy Practice at Meiji Pharmaceutical University in Preparation for Introduction of Long-term Pharmacy Practice

questionnaire survey in which 404 students who had completed the practice were asked about what they felt were the burdens on them in the practice, their degree of satisfaction, what they had learned, and problems in the practice at the pharmacies where they un-dertook it and at our university. We then analysed the problems within our university in order to make improvements. The burden on the students due to lack of knowledge was greater than the time-related burden, psychological, or physical burden. However, the students seemed to have become aware of their responsibility as pharmacists in the clinical setting as well as that to society and for most of them, the degree of satisfaction after the practice was greater than the degree of eagerness before it. Though they felt that the content of the practice at many institutions was rich and varied they felt the lectures at university before it were inadequate. While the results of this survey showed that most students obtained a sense of fulfillment from the practice and had no major problems, for a few the degree of satisfaction after the practice was less than the degree of eagerness before it. Our university should now study the burdens felt by the students with a view to taking measures against them in the long-term pharmacy practice beginning in 2010. We felt that cooperation between the university and pharmaceutical asso-ciations was necessary in order to solve the problems quickly.