Pakistani Pharmacist Dr. Abdul Latif Sheikh received the world’s biggest pharmacy award “Donald Frankie Medal Award” from the American Society of Health System Pharmacists.
Dr. Abdul Latif Shaikh, Founder President of Pakistan Society of Health System Pharmacists, is the first Pakistani and Asian Pharmacist to be honored with this prestigious award.
This award was issued in 1971 in recognition of the services of renowned American pharmacist Donald E. Frankie.
This award is given to those pharmacists who have done significant work in the field of pharmacy globally or in their countries.The Board of Directors of the American Society of Health System Pharmacists selects such pharmacists from around the world.
The Donald Frankie Award has been given to 22 personalities from the world of pharmacy so far and in the year 2018 this award was given to Pakistan, before this award was given to mostly European and American pharmacists.
Dr. Abdul Latif Shaikh studied pharmacy from USA after B.pharmacy from the Punjab University. He has also been a consultant to the Department of Pharmacy at the World Health Organization.
On receiving the award, Dr. Abdul Latif Shaikh said that this award was not given to him personally but to Pakistan. He said that 8 to 25 percent of medicines are used in wrong ways in hospitals, which leads to medication errors and 2 to 33 percent of medicines used at home level have some kind of error. According to a study by Hopkins University, one of the best universities in the world, 250,000 deaths occur due to medication errors in the United States every year.
