COVID-19 impact on pharmacy education in Saudi Arabia: Challenges and opportunities

Abstract

The first case of COVID-19 was announced at the end of year 2019, and later many cases were identified worldwide. In Saudi Arabia, the first case was announced on 2 March 2020. To prevent the spread of this pandemic disease, many precautionary actions were taken by Saudi government. One of these actions was closing public and private schools and universities and transfer the educational activities to virtual platforms. All colleges of Pharmacy in Saudi Arabia, whether the 21 public or the eight private ones, were affected by those sudden transitions and their responses varied according to their preparedness levels. Here we shared our experience in king Saud University in the curricular components of pharmacy school that includes classroom teaching, laboratory teaching, experiential training, assessment, and extracurricular activity and student support during COVID-19 compulsory lockdown. Lastly, we presented the lesson learned toward pharmacy education from COVID-19 pandemic.