One hundred years of the history of pharmacy studies in Turkey.

As an inheritor of the rich medico-pharmaceutical heritage in Asia Minor, Turkey constituted a critical junction of exchange and dissemination of pharmacy knowledge between East and West throughout history. This greatly contributed to the rapid development of pharmacy as an established profession. The 20th century saw scholarly examination of the field's history: the first book on the history of pharmacy appeared in Turkish (1911); a history of pharmacy course was offered for the first time in the pharmacy curriculum (1945); the first history of pharmacy museum was founded (1960); and national conferences on the history of pharmacy were launched (1990). In addition to providing information on the milestones of the history of pharmacy studies in Turkey in the last hundred years, this study aims to statistically evaluate the change in the number of history of pharmacy-related publications per decade as well as discuss the current situation of history of pharmacy education at Turkish universities. The history of pharmacy has become a stronger and more independent academic discipline in Turkey, particularly in the last two decades. As of 2014, history of pharmacy undergraduate courses are taught at all faculties of pharmacy in Turkey, except the Yuzuncu Yil University (Van), mainly between first and fourth semesters.

Can pharmaceutical history courses contribute in building future pharmacy leaders? A preliminary study from Erciyes University, Turkey.

This study aimed to investigate the relationship between pharmacy students' opinions on the importance of leadership and their levels of interest in pharmaceutical history. We administered a structured questionnaire to 160 undergraduate students (response rate of 86.3%) who have taken pharmaceutical history courses at the Erciyes University Faculty of Pharmacy in the past three years. We observed that 42.8% of the participants valued leadership as a very important skill that a pharmacist should possess through his/her professional career, of which 54.2% were very interested in pharmaceutical history. There is a statistically significant relationship between participants' opinions on the importance of leadership and their levels of interest in pharmaceutical history. Our findings suggest that the participants valuing leadership as a very important skill are more interested in pharmaceutical history than those valuing leadership as an unimportant skill. This result indicates that pharmaceutical history courses can serve as an effective tool for developing pharmacy students' awareness and attitudes toward professional leadership.

Pharmacy in Turkey: past, present, and future.

Pharmacy in Turkey underwent a radical change within the last decade. Introduction of the Health Transformation Program in 2003 has had a significant impact on Turkey's pharmacy system in accordance with objectives of the program to establish new pricing regulations for pharmaceuticals based on reference prices, and to develop better computer based health information/record systems. In this context, Pharmaceutical Tracking (Track-and-Trace) System using two dimensional matrix barcodes was initiated to prevent not only drug counterfeiting, but also fraud against the medical insurance system and off-record transactions within the pharmaceutical sector; and the process of recording prescriptions in an electronic format was launched. Some other improvements have also been made with respect to pharmacy education, law and practice. In contrast with all these positive outcomes, Turkish pharmacy sector is currently in a deep financial struggle. This paper aims to provide a brief overview of the recent developments in Turkish pharmacy system and to discuss future roles and challenges of the profession.