The world is constantly becoming a global village, where people from different countries, and cultures are compelled to interact on a daily basis now, more than ever before. Along with the constant metaphorical shrinking of the world, has come the constantly changing field of medicine.

Ghana particularly, finds herself in a peculiar situation, being bordered to the north, east and west by predominantly French speaking countries – a situation that increasingly requires that professionals within the healthcare delivery sector, especially, are able to communicate in at least, two languages, that is, French and English.

Every day, new kinds of drugs and medical devices are introduced, and hundreds of research findings are revealed around the world. Even though each country speaks a different language, people fight the same diseases and struggle with the same health issues. If translation in other fields mainly serves the purpose of sales and business expansion, medical translation serves another noble cause which is humanity.

Moreover, effective communication by pharmacists is essential to improve the use of medications by patients and ensure optimal therapeutic outcomes. Pharmacists can improve patients’ adherence to drug therapy through appropriate strategies, including patient counseling and education if they are able to communicate with them in a language they understand. 

This is perhaps, the driving force behind the UDS School of Pharmacy’s plan to introduce the study of French from the second to the fifth year for PharmD students. According to the Dean of the School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences (SPPS), Professor Baba Sulemana Mohammed, being bilingual will help pharmacists to navigate clients demands, and be able to transact business in French. He added that because factors such as language, unfamiliar customs, and misconceptions about health care can keep foreign residents from seeking medical care, bilingual health workers, especially, pharmacists, can help to ease a patient's fears and even reduce barriers to clinical preventative care.

Additionally, the UDS School of pharmacy has introduced programmes to help students to understand the needs of persons with disabilities and how such persons can be attended to, without any discrimination. Persons with disabilities face multiple barriers when accessing health care services. These include attitudinal, communication, transportation and environmental barriers. These barriers can result in disparities in health care and compromised care.

Professor Baba Sulemana Mohammed is of the view that the situation where some people with disabilities have been described as being invisible to pharmacists because of pharmacists’ lack of knowledge or experience in addressing these barriers, will be a thing of the past when students are taking through lessons on disability studies.
 
On plans the UDS School of Pharmacy has to generate income for the University, Prof. Baba Mohammed said the school is also in the process of establishing a Product Research and Development Unit to produce pharmaceutical products locally which will be offered to the local population at subsidized prices. Furthermore, the UDS School of Pharmacy, as part of efforts geared at ensuring the safety, efficacy, quality and standardization of herbal products and food supplements produced in the country, will take the ideas of indigenous people in herbal medicine through research-based production. He said the School of Pharmacy will assist herbal medicine practitioners to come out with the right tests, and doses, as well as help to package herbal medicine into tablets and capsules.

He added that in order for Ghanaian herbal products and food supplements to make significant strides on the international market, there was the need for the products to be of the highest quality and standards.