A cross-culture comparison of UK, German and Australian pharmacy undergraduates’ views on their education, status and international work opportunities

A cross-sectional study of the views of UK, Australian and German students in the latter stages of their undergraduate courses was conducted at Portsmouth, Sydney and Bonn Universities. A total of 326 students (59% response) provided opinions on course content, evolving community pharmacy practice and practice abroad. Most students (>80% of those expressing an opinion) thought that the Clinical Pharmacy content of their courses was about right or should increase. Students were in favour of the introduction of supplementary prescribing (Britai —100%; Australia—86%; Germany—68%) and to a lesser extent independent prescribing (Britain—92%; Australia—75%; Germany—32%) but had doubts that their current courses were preparing them for this. Students ranked pharmacists as being on a par with other healthcare professionals with a clinical role. Over 80% of students were prepared to consider practicing pharmacy abroad; main motivations were lifestyle, salary and the chance to learn more about their profession; language barriers and the need to retrain and re-register were reasons not to