Dr Rajender Aparasu is visiting Atma Jaya Catholic University from August 18 to September 18, 2019, under the Fulbright Specialist Program.

Department of Pharmacy of the Catholic University of Atma Jaya had successfully collaborated with Dr. Rajendar Aparasu, Professor from College of Pharmacy, University of Houston, through Fulbright Specialist Program.

According to Dr. Aparasu the forty day Fulbright Specialist Program was mainly designed as a faculty and academic development initiative by Atma Jaya University to (i) enrich the pharmacy curriculum, (ii) develop research road map, and (iii) strengthen research capacity. Several activities that were organized by the Department of Pharmacy of the Catholic University of Atma Jaya included workshops, seminars, lectures, panel discussions, and one-on-one meetings.

These activities were well organized and the events were well spaced to achieve the project objectives. There was assigned faculty in-charge for each of the activities. First, they were able to obtain and incorporate stakeholders input into the pharmacy curriculum after two focus group sessions with the external and internal stakeholders. Second, the draft research roadmap was revised based on the input Dr. Aparasu provided regarding the evolving paradigm of personalized medicine from basic to applied areas of pharmacy.  Third, they also had an excellent start to strengthen the research skills by conducting workshops on clinical research and publications in high impact journals. The clinical research workshop focused on observational study designs. The publication workshop provided an effective framework to strategize and develop high quality manuscripts.

However, Dr. Aparasu thinks these areas need more time and effort by the faculty members to take the next step of execution to successfully implement the skills learnt in the workshops.

In addition to the above activities, several student oriented sessions were also organized. These included seminars on pharmacist roles in the United States and pharmaceutical care in the elderly.

Dr. Aparasu said that the most interesting and enjoyable experience was participating in a panel session with Ibu Nafsiah Mboi, former health minister to discuss and debate evidence-based health policy. This provided a rich learning experience as it involved health system and health policy issues in developing countries.

He further said that he was looking forward to collaborating with the faculty involved in clinical and health policy research in the near future as a start to develop their research portfolios.

There were two other scientific writing workshops that he had the opportunity to offer to the faculty outside Atma Jaya University.  The first workshop was organized by the Indonesia Ministry, Technology, and Higher Education, (RISTEDIKT) and Elsevier Group for medical school faculty belonging to middle and low ranked B & C accredited schools.

The second workshop was organized by the University of Indonesia for nursing and public health faculty of Thailand supported by their Ministry of Health and Education.  These workshops focused on maximizing faculty success in reviewing for and publishing in high-impact, international peer-reviewed journals.

Overall, Dr. Aparasu admitted that he had a thoroughly enjoyable experience being a Fulbright Specialist at Atma Jaya University in Indonesia, and is sure he will visit Indonesia again.