International Workshop on Drug Safety Monitoring to Enhance Patient Safety and Health
The Faculty of Pharmacy at Tishk International University organized the 5th International Pharmacy Workshop on Drug Safety Monitoring to Enhance Patient Safety and Health on the 27th of February, 2023.
The theme of the workshop was Innovative Approaches to Drug Safety, in which three great speakers presented their works on this critical topic. The workshop aimed to shed light on therapeutic approaches for developing and enhancing drug safety and discuss the most frequent therapeutic approaches used in medicine to enhance patient outcomes in terms of health, mainly pharmacotherapy. Prescribed drugs have, however, frequently led to patient morbidity and fatality instead. Medication mistakes can occur at any stage of the medication use process. However, most medication-related harm is concentrated in three high-risk circumstances, polypharmacy, and transitions of care, which are priority areas of healthcare delivery. This workshop aimed to highlight typical medication errors as well as risk mitigation techniques to guarantee pharmaceutical safety with pharmaco-therapy.
The workshop started with an opening ceremony in which the host of the workshop Dr. Mohammed Sultan welcomed the beloved participants before continuing with the Iraqi National anthem, followed by the Kurdish National anthem before officially beginning. To begin the workshop, the host, Dr. Mohammed Sultan, welcomed Assistant Professor Dr. Idris Hadi, the Head of the Board of Trustees of Tishk International University, to deliver his opening speech. Dr. Idris Hadi began his speech by welcoming the beloved guests and participants to this important workshop and expressing his appreciation for the organization of such a valuable event.
Next, Assistant Prof. Dr Abdulsamad Salahuddin, the President of Tishk International University, delivered his opening speech. As a Pharmacist, Dr. Abdulsamad valued such an event and emphasized the importance of this workshop. He mentioned in his speech that as pharmacists, it is essential to acknowledge the role of enhancement of drug safety since the drug industry is dependent on the safety and health of the patients. He ended his speech by expressing his anticipation of learning more about the innovative approaches for drug safety enhancement.
Then to officially introduce the workshop, Professor Dr. Vedat Koksal, the Dean of the Faculty of Pharmacy, gave his speech, beginning by welcoming the guests. His speech held important points about the workshop’s aim, enlightening the participants and guests about the agenda behind this valuable event to the Faculty of Pharmacy at Tishk International University and all the pharmacists and pharmacy students.
The first speaker of the workshop was Assoc. Prof. Dr. Mahmathi Karuppannan from the Department of Clinical Pharmacy, Faculty of Pharmacy at the University of Technology MARA, Selangor Branch at Puncak Alam Campus from Malaysia. She gave an in-depth presentation titled “Technology in Medication Safety”, where she talked about the role of technology in the enhancement and development of the safety of drugs for results that can ensure the patient’s safety while delivering the drugs with appropriate efficacy.
The second speaker of the workshop, Dr. Bootan Abdulgader Salih, an Assitant Lecturer at HIMU College of Pharmacy, with a BSc in Pharmacy Science in 2009 and an Msc in clinical pharmacy in 2015, and who is currently a PhD student in community pharmacy. Dr. Bootan’s presentation titled Pharmacovigilance Science and Effect of Certain Factors on Occurrence of ADRs shed light on monitoring the drugs through pharmacovigilance and the correlation between factors that can be considered as causes for adverse drug reactions and how we need to address and overcome these issues for better drug delivery with enhanced safety and efficacy. Dr. Vedat Koksal was then requested to come to the stage and give Dr. Bootan his plaque for such an excellent presentation as a speaker in the workshop.
The participants were then asked to enjoy a small coffee break in which students made various snacks from the faculty before rejoining the workshop again to start with the second session.
The second session’s speaker, the last speaker for the workshop, was Mr. Hallo Serajalden Rasheed, who has Medical Microbiology B.SC, working at The International Research & Exchanges Board (IREX) and CDC; Career Development Center. His presentation was titled Role of Microbiologist for Decreasing Abusing Drugs. Mr. Hallo enabled the participants to understand the aspects of different methods used by microbiologists that lead to drug abuse through decreasing their safety for patient use, how we can overcome such problems, and what solutions are currently present.
Dr. Esra Bayraktar was kindly requested to join the stage and give Mr. Hallo his plaque for giving such an informative presentation as a speaker in the workshop. Lastly, to conclude the workshop, the organizer of this insightful workshop Dr. Ali Omar, Lecturer at the Faculty of Pharmacy at Tishk International University, was requested to come and give his closing speech. Dr. Ali thanked all the participants, guests, speakers, volunteers, and contributors for making this workshop happen, giving special thanks to Dr. Mahmathi Karuppannan, who was able to join online from Malaysia.
As Faculty of Pharmacy, we thank everyone who graced us by joining this workshop and helping in shedding light on this undeniably important topic. A special thanks to the organizer of the workshop Dr. Ali Omar and the co-organizer Mr. Mohammed Rasul and the organizing committee, who have worked hard to enable the workshop. We look forward to more insightful activities that will be conducted by the Faculty of Pharmacy in the future as well.
