Pharmacy Education in the United Arab Emirates

To the Editor. We appreciated the 2008 article “Pharmacy Education and Practice in 13 Middle Eastern Countries.”¹ The article provided some information on pharmacy education in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The data were obtained by reviewing the available published literature, individual university websites, and contacting program representatives, and thus, some of the data may not have been peer reviewed as acknowledged by authors.¹

Kheir and co-authors stated that there were 7 pharmacy schools in the UAE and no PharmD programs at the time of article publication.¹ In this letter we elaborate on and update the information related to pharmacy education in the UAE.

The first pharmacy school was Dubai Pharmacy College established in 1992 as a private institute.² It offers 1 bachelor’s degree and 2 master’s degree programs in pharmaceutical formulation development and clinical pharmacy and pharmacy practice.³

In 1996, Ajman University of Science and Technology established the College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences as the second pharmacy institute.⁴ It offers a bachelor degree in pharmacy and 2 master’s degree programs. In 2005 the College of Pharmacy of Sharjah University opened a bachelor’s in pharmacy program.^3,5 The College of Pharmacy at The Gulf Medical University was the first college to offer a PharmD program in the UAE.^3,6

Two pharmacy colleges were established in 2007. The College of Pharmaceutical Sciences at Ras Al Khaimah Medical and Health Sciences University that offers an undergraduate degree of bachelor of pharmacy and 4 graduate degree programs: a master’s degree in clinical pharmacy, pharmaceutical chemistry, pharmaceutics, and 1 PharmD program.^3,7 In the same year, the College of Pharmacy at Al-Ain University of Science and Technology was established and offers a bachelor’s degree in pharmacy.^3,8 All the institutes are private, English is the language of instruction, and all schools are nationally accredited by the Commission for Academic Accreditation.³

Out of the 7 pharmacy schools, the only governmental institute of pharmacy is the Dubai Women’s College of the UAE Higher Colleges of Technology, and it commenced a bachelor of pharmacy degree program in 2003.⁹ The bachelor of pharmacy program was reviewed by the Canadian Council for Accreditation of Pharmacy (CCAP) in 2007¹⁰ and entered into a pilot accreditation project with CCAP in 2008. The program is offered exclusively for female UAE citizens.⁹

• © 2014 American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy