The Indian Pharmaceutical Association (IPA), All India Pharmacy Students Rights Forum (PSRF), All India Drug Control Officers’ Confederation (AIDCOC) and several other organisations and experts in the field of pharmacy have long been demanding to the Union Public Service Commission to include a subject of the pharmaceutical sciences in the syllabus of the civil services examination as an optional subject. Currently, UPSC has permitted B Pharm holders to attend the preliminary civil services examinations considering the qualification as a degree. But it does not do any good for the pharmacy graduates to win the examination through their own subjects. They have to choose other subjects of humanities or sciences as optional for the main examination. Whereas, pharmacology is an optional subject for the main examination, accordingly several doctors are joining the civil services. A graduate in pharmacy, either B Pharm or Pharm D may not have thorough knowledge in pharmacology as that of a medical doctor. Several B Pharm graduates did the preliminary exam in the previous years and passed the tests, but could not clear the main exams because of opting science or humanities as optional subjects. Apart from other basic subjects, agriculture, veterinary, engineering and medicine are also included in the curriculum of civil services examination, but pharmaceutical science is not included. Of course, pharmaceutical science is a professional subject like medicine, engineering and architecture. So, the opportunities to serve the community with administrative power should not be denied to the pharmacy professionals. Otherwise, it will tantamount to a kind of discrimination towards this noble profession and subject.
Obviously, it is time for the UPSC to consider this issue in its proper perspective. There is some merit in the argument of the pharmacy associations and experts to include pharmaceutical science in the syllabi of the UPSC main exam as medicine, engineering and several other professional subjects have already been included in the syllabus of civil services examination. The government should understand the fact that pharmaceutical science, unlike other subjects, is a subject directly related to the health and welfare of the public, and pharmacists have become an integral and inseparable component of the Indian healthcare system. At present, the medical graduates have an edge over pharmacy graduates in the civil services exams as they learn about pharmacology in their degree course and also during the specialization in the post-graduation. Priority should not be given for pharmacology as several medical graduates do their PG in pharmacology and opt it for the main exam for the civil services. As far as pharmacy graduates are concerned, it is too difficult for them to compete with the medical students with post-graduation in pharmacology in the exam. To avoid such a situation, the UPSC should provide a level-playing field to all and should consider including pharmaceutics or pharmaceutical chemistry as optional subjects. |