Madam, - Bryan Mooney, writes (College Choice, January 21st) that until recently Trinity College Dublin was the only Irish university to offer pharmacists a degree. In fact, University College Dublin did just that in the early 1960s. The arrangement worked for about 16 years.
Three of the relevant courses were run in the independent School of Pharmacy, in Shrewsbury Road. And the fourth - in pharmacology (including associated physiology and biochemistry) and staffed by UCD staff - had its lectures there also, but its practicals were held on the UCD Belfield campus. (Some years later Queen's established the first Northern degree course.) Ironically, being a medical doctor, I was allowed to bring pharmacists to bedside demonstrations in the TCD-linked Baggot Street Hospital.
At the request of the Irish Pharmaceutical Society, inspectors from London's Schools of Pharmacy wrote a very encouraging report on the four professional pharmacy courses and examinations. However, three NUI-recognised courses off-campus and the other on-campus constituted an unwieldy arrangement that too long awaited a firm government decision.
Given, too, the proximity of the Dental Hospital to Trinity College, ultimate rationalisation made some sense, whereby professional courses in dentistry and pharmacy would be virtually fully on a campus at TCD.
Several leading pharmacists are NUI (UCD) graduates. One has headed the Pharmaceutical Group of the EU. Another, coping admirably with business studies at Harvard, went on to take out a US law degree. Others went on to higher NUI degrees in different subjects, even though, by British standards, our university departments have been grossly understaffed.
The departure to TCD left vacant in effect 50 places at UCD. They were quickly filled by pure science students in pharmacology, benefiting, I like to think, from my - at the time - controversial teaching/research staff infrastructuring policy in search of complementary strengths in underlying biochemistry, chemistry, physics and zoology. Bryan Mooney could in future enlarge on careers in third-level paramedical areas such as medical engineering, genetics, clinical psychology, medical microbiology and, of course, pharmacology (not excluding toxicology). - Yours, etc.,
PAUL J. CANNON, Professor Emeritus, Maurice Kennedy Research Centre, UCD, Dublin 4.