by Ria Gupta, MPharm Student and RPS Summer Intern
After being accepted onto the 8-week internship at RPS, I was excited to get involved in a sector of pharmacy about which I didn’t have much knowledge. Not only did I see an opportunity to learn new skills and develop existing ones, I also recognised a chance to positively impact patient welfare. Here I share my experience of the internship, albeit conducted completely online, in the hopes of encouraging other students to apply for this fantastic and eye-opening programme. Full of learning possibilities, you gain entry into a whole new world of pharmacy!
Although I was apprehensive on hearing that the internship would be entirely online, after a couple of days of meeting the teams, learning the ropes, and exploring the company systems, I felt comfortable, well prepared and welcomed into the RPS family: My virtual home, working from home!
Seeing first-hand the work that goes into the most important pharmaceutical publications was fascinating. A completely different experience to that of the work done in my degree, this pharmaceutical sector is crucial, and provides valuable information used every day by pharmacists.
As a member of the revalidation team, I worked on the Directions for Administrations pot within MedicinesComplete. Allocated a certain number of drugs to go through, my task was to ensure that the information written in MedicinesComplete could be sourced from the manufacturers’ SPCs. Knowing that the work I have done has directly helped the revalidation team meet their deadlines is extremely rewarding. Throughout the internship, my colleagues were supportive and shared their different journeys and experiences leading to RPS. I was constantly reminded of the breadth of opportunities and doors that can be opened with a pharmaceutical degree, in many different sectors that I am able to look into.
The highlight of the internship was the interns Dragons’ Den event. Partnered with another intern, we were told to come up with a product for RPS and present it to the rest of the team through Zoom. It was challenging, and certainly took me out of my comfort zone, but it turned out to be a success.
The RPS internship is not just busybody work with a university credit at the end of it. In my time with the revalidation team, I was making meaningful and important contributions whilst broadening my horizons. To have the experience of a pharmacist in publishing, the RPS programme has opened my eyes to a new sector within the large umbrella of pharmacy and has left me keen to discover more. For students looking to obtain new skills which are crucial to their all-round development, yet which are not found in their normal coursework, this is a must!