Three Pharmacy students from De Montfort University (DMU) Leicester have been ranked top 10 in a national league table landing them leading placements across the UK.
Emma O’Neill, Josh Coughlan and Annabel Hunt have been placed at the top of the UK wide recruitment system, Oriel, which has secured them a foundation training year with their preferred employers.
Oriel is currently the only route for pharmacy students to take to complete their final year of training and register as a pharmacist. For the selection process, each student must take a three-hour test, marking them on their maths and situational judgement abilities.
They then have to wait to receive their ranking and confirmation on their preferred placements. The higher the ranking, the better chance they have of working in their favoured sector.
Emma scored second place on the ranking, which means she’ll go to Royal Derby Hospital for her Foundation Training Year. She said: “Honestly I was really shocked when it happened. I didn’t think I would end up in a position like that.
“The placement I ended up getting means that I’ll automatically progress through the bands, so as I go on to being a qualified pharmacist, I’ll stay on in employment and go through the bands.
“You want to rank as high as possible to increase your chances of getting a good placement - it essentially dictates where you get to go.
“In my case, the Royal Derby Hospital was my top choice as it’s the only placement in the UK that does automatic progression. So being ranked second means that I had the best possible chance to be accepted.
“I was just very proud of myself. My grandfather is a doctor but I’m the first pharmacist in my family. I’ve never been placed that high in anything ever. I wasn’t even expecting to be top 100.”
This year, the selection process received 3139 applicants from students across the UK.
During the process, students can choose as many placements as they want to, from hospitals to High Street pharmacies and GP practices. Josh Coughlan, was ranked number four in the selection process, and put 198 placements as his preferred choice to secure the sector he wanted. Like Emma, he’ll also be going to the Royal Derby Hospital next year.
Josh said: “It was a bit of a shock. I’ve had a bit of an unorthodox route into university, and I found out last year that I’m severely dyslexic and dyscalculic. So, I was hoping for a score of 800 – I couldn’t quite believe it when I saw the number four.
“I’ve worked between community pharmacy and primary care practice for about 8 years and I’ve been wanting to make the transition to hospitals but it can be difficult – it’s the reason why I wanted to come to university.
“Someone asked me recently, “having gone through the degree, would you still choose to go to DMU?” And my response was yes. I’ve worked with quite a few pharmacy students at other universities and while they can regurgitate the knowledge, our course has taught us clinical decision making and critical thinking.
“Having that drilled into us from day one, I think it really helps when you come into those situational judgement tests, because you’re really thinking about the best outcome with the evidence you’ve got.”
Helen Root, Head of Pharmacy Practice at DMU, said: “At the Leicester School of Pharmacy, we work hard to support students through the Oriel application process and have a designated lead within the programme team, Zahra Mahomed.
“It is fantastic to see our students performing well in the Oriel application process and securing their first-choice placements.
“It also helps us know that we are supporting our students to achieve their potential which is always rewarding.”
Posted on Thursday 16 January 2025