Host: The Japanese Society of Toxicology
Name : The 51st Annual Meeting of the Japanese Society of Toxicology
Date : July 03, 2024 - July 05, 2024
As a new chemical substance regulation under the Industrial Safety and Health Act, substances that have not previously required risk assessment will be required to be managed autonomously from April 2024. Company operators are now obliged to wear appropriate protective equipment, issue SDSs, and implement measures to reduce exposure concentrations, even for substances not classified under the GHS by the government, making the management of chemical substances even stricter.
On the other hand, education at the faculty of pharmacy is conducted based on the "Model Core Curriculum for Pharmaceutical Education," which covers a wide range of fields from basic subjects to clinical subjects. In particular, basic subjects related to organic chemistry continue from the first grade to the fourth grade, while those related to hygiene are often taken in the second to third grade. These are important for pharmaceutical education, and the education is provided over time. However, when focusing on "occupational health" within hygiene, it seems that not enough time is necessarily spent on this area. Actually, the university to which the presenter belongs has only one time in Public Health (common subjects for all departments) in the third grade and ten times in Occupational Health Theory (departmental major subject) in the sixth grade, and it cannot consider to be well-developed.
The national examination for pharmacists has included questions on industrial toxicity in the practical field, requiring more practical thinking skills. It can be inferred that the demand for pharmacists who not only understand the toxicity of chemical materials, but also understand and management of human health. Therefore, we think that "industrial pharmacists" will play an active role in companies in the future. Also, the revised model core curriculum for pharmaceutical education, which was in application from April 2024, has the basic principle of "fostering human resources who can discover and solve problems scientifically", and has required for education that is not confined to a single field or subject but takes a multifaceted view of the pharmaceutical science.
The present section, we will introduce the current occupational health field in pharmaceutical education and the surveys were conducted on interest for occupational health in pharmacy students.
