New international opportunities for students at Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy

In today’s healthcare and research settings, cultural competence and a good understanding of global health issues form a vital aspect of the overall competence of pharmacists and pharmaceutical scientists alike.

Students at the Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy now have the opportunity to engage in new international rotations in Japan, UK, France and the U.S.  These new opportunities are building on years of international collaboration with other international universities and healthcare institutions like the Chinese University of Hong Kong and. St. Mary’s hospital Lacor in Uganda, to name a few.

The Office of Experiential Education, led by the Director Marvin James has developed a strong collaborative relationship with U of T’s Centre for International Experience with a goal towards identifying international opportunities  for students in all programs including PharmD, Pharmaceutical Chemistry,  PharmD for Pharmacists, and graduate students in the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences.

Specifically, the most recent partnerships include:

• Ritsumeikan University, Japan
• University of Bath
• Université Paris Descartes
• University of Tennessee

International experience is about more than crossing borders and visiting other countries. It’s about the meeting of different people, languages, traditions, values and ways of interpreting the world — international experience is intercultural experience.

According to U of T’s Centre for International Experience, there are many wonderful benefits associated with international opportunities that students should consider:

• Travelling to a new country builds confidence and expands your comfort zone.
• Learning to connect with people from different cultures leads to quicker adaptation and success in new environments.
• Intercultural competencies will help you manage the challenges of a global workplace.
• International experiences cultivate cultural and interpersonal understanding and help build more effective communication skills.
• Speaking multiple languages builds higher-level cognitive abilities.

For more information on how to participate in these international experiences, please contact the Office of Experiential Education oee.phm@utoronto.ca