Established in 1399/1400 AH, the Clinical Pharmacy Department has since kept pace with numerous curriculum updates in line with the healthcare transformation plan of Saudi Vision 2030. The department aims to train highly qualified professional pharmacists who provide healthcare services in various sectors. The department strives to be a leader in clinical pharmacy education, training, and research at both national and regional levels while providing the best healthcare services to individuals, institutions, and the community.

The department offers courses that prepare students to play an effective role within the healthcare team, in line with the requirements of the profession and the job market. This includes providing students with information about diseases, their causes, symptoms, progression, prevention methods, and treatments. The courses cover the therapeutic effects of various drugs through a proper understanding of pharmacokinetics, clinical trials, and the ability to identify drug side effects and toxicity. Additionally, the curriculum includes pharmaceutical care outcomes and policies, pharmacovigilance and drug safety, health policies, and pharmacoeconomics.

The department strives to develop graduates' skills through simulated experiences in pharmacy practice laboratories. It participates in training residency pharmacists in various areas of pharmacy practice in hospitals, community pharmacies, and drug and poison information centers.

In addition to its active contribution to teaching courses in the Doctor of Pharmacy program at the undergraduate level, the Clinical Pharmacy Department offers postgraduate programs, including a Master's degree in Clinical Pharmacy (established in 1992) and a PhD in Pharmacy Practice (established in 2021), the first of its kind in the Kingdom and the Gulf region. This program offers two tracks: Pharmaceutical Services, Outcomes, and Policies, and Precision Pharmacotherapy.

In collaboration with King Saud University Medical City, the department oversees professional postgraduate programs, including a general residency program accredited by the Saudi Commission for Health Specialties and the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists, and specialized residencies in various fields. Recently, fellowship programs have also been approved at the college, and the department contributes to supervising several specialties, including fellowships in cardiology, mobile care, and internal medicine.

The department also aims to expand its postgraduate programs to include Master's programs in various specializations in the coming years, such as a Master's in Pharmaceutical Care Outcomes and Policies and an Executive Master's in Health and Pharmaceutical Economics.

The department, in collaboration with its affiliated units—the Pharmacoeconomics Unit, the Pharmacokinetics Unit, and the Community Pharmacy Unit—and the Drug and Poison Information Center, aims for research and development in the relevant fields.

The department also conducts research in several specialized areas such as pharmaceutical care outcomes and policies, pharmacokinetics, pharmacovigilance and drug safety, health policies and pharmacoeconomics, pharmacogenomics, and pharmacy practice in various specialties such as infectious diseases, cardiovascular and oncology diseases, mobile and critical care. This research is conducted by a select group of faculty and researchers in the department.

Head of the Clinical Pharmacy Department

Dr. Thamer bin Abdulaziz Al-Munqur