Almutairi shares insights on international health care delivery

Every country has its own approach to health care. One of the spotlights during MUSC’s Global Health Week will be on pharmacy in Saudi Arabia, courtesy of third-year student Lama Almutairi.

MUSC’s Global Health Week is April 8-13 with a week full of events, speakers, a student local-global service project and a poster presentation.

Almutairi, who earned a Pharm.D. from Princess Nourah bint Abdulrahman University in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, is a panelist for Differences in Healthcare Delivery Across Borders – Global Perspectives Within the MUSC Community.

The panel is on Wednesday, April 10 at 4 p.m. in the Bioengineering Building BE 112 (also broadcast virtually) and includes health professions students Sally Morsey (Egypt), medicine/graduate studies postdoctoral fellow Vincent Brice Owona Ayissi (Cameroon), and Rami Zebian, chief medical officer of MUSC Florence (Lebanon).

Full schedule

More about Global Health Week.

“Pharmacy in Saudi Arabia mirrors pharmacy in the U.S. more closely than many other countries,” Almutairi said. “The program takes six years because you enter right out of high school, so the first three years are all prerequisites. Pharmacy education here is a little more hands-on application and learning how to apply your knowledge in the real world.”

Another difference is what happens when you finish. What brought Almutairi to MUSC is the prospect of landing a post-graduate residency; while earning a residency slot is highly competitive in the U.S., it is even more so in Saudi Arabia. Pharmacy residencies are less established and there are fewer clinical specialists and fewer residency slots.

If she is successful, she’ll complete the residency and then return to Saudi Arabia, where she has her sights set on landing an assistant professorship.

“I’d like to carry the knowledge I got from the U.S., personally and professionally, and teach it to other people,” she said.