The health care system in Saudi Arabia is a national health care system in which the government provides free health care services to all citizens through different health care sectors.¹ Various governmental agencies regulate and control the system. These include the ministry of health (MOH), which provides health care coverage to around 60% of the Saudi citizens; the Saudi Food and Drug Authority (SFDA), which regulates pharmaceuticals, medical supplies, and medical devices; and the Saudi Commission for Health Specialties (SCHS), which regulates health-related training and licenses health care providers.¹

Pharmacy practice in Saudi Arabia dates back to the late 1950s, when the first school of pharmacy was established.² The clinical pharmacy concept was introduced in the mid-1970s when clinical pharmacists from the United States implemented pharmacokinetics, parenteral nutrition, and drug information services at King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Center (KFSH&RC; Division of Pharmacy Services, personal communication) in Riyadh. Similar to pharmacists’ roles in other developed countries, the traditional role of pharmacists in Saudi Arabia has shifted from a focus on products and services to an emphasis on medication management and patient care. However, providing high-quality pharmaceutical care to patients has been a major challenge for pharmacists, even though most Saudi schools of pharmacy recently shifted from the bachelor’s degree in pharmacy to the doctor of pharmacy (Pharm.D.) degree.²

In Saudi Arabia, the first pharmacy residency program was established at KFSH&RC in Riyadh in 1997 in affiliation with the St. Louis College of Pharmacy, St. Louis, Missouri (KFSH&RC; Division of Pharmacy Services, personal communication). Since then, the program has undergone several revisions and developments until reaching its current structure. The current program is 24-month postgraduate training with structured rotations in clinical and operational aspects of pharmacy practice, education, research, and administration. Its goal is to prepare candidates to be independent pharmacy practitioners with a higher level of skills and knowledge to assume advanced practice roles. The description of the program, its development, and its structure has been discussed elsewhere.³

The program was first accredited by the SCHS, the official local accreditation body for health training, in 2001 and has undergone several reaccreditation processes during the past 10 years. Because of the absence of local or regional societies that set standards for this unique type of training, we elected to seek the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP) “international” accreditation. The four main reasons that led the pharmacy administration at KFSH&RC to seek this international accreditation were as follows:

1. The rigorous accreditation process would require the pharmacy to demonstrate compliance with established high-level standards of practice, which would reflect positively on the overall quality of services provided to patients.
2. ASHP accreditation would ensure that the program underwent peer review to fulfill the requirements needed to provide a state-of-the-art practice environment to our residents.
3. Accreditation would push the pharmacy profession in Saudi Arabia forward, making other sites in the country strive to improve their training and clinical pharmacy services.
4. Accreditation would attract future residents and encourage future employers to hire these residents after their graduation.

In September 2011, the program received ASHP accreditation as the first internationally accredited postgraduate year one (PGY1) residency program. The below table summarizes the residency program rotations.

Table. KFSH & RC – Riyadh PGY1 Pharmacy Residency Program Rotations

IV = intravenous; wk = week.

1. Department of Statistics. 2009 Health Statistical Year Book. The Saudi Ministry of Health. Available at www.moh.gov.sa/en/Ministry/Statistics/Book/Pages/default.aspx. Updated June 15, 2011. Accessed September 2, 2011.
2. Assiri Y. Emerging frontiers of pharmacy education in Saudi Arabia: the metamorphosis in the last fifty years. SPJ 2011;19:1–8.
3. Al-Haidari KM, Al-Jazairi AS. Establishment of a national pharmacy practice residency program in Saudi Arabia. Am J Health Syst Pharm 2010;67:1467–70.

^†Opinions, judgments, and data expressed or implied in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the policy or position of the American College of Clinical Pharmacy, and the American College of Clinical Pharmacy provides no warranty regarding their accuracy or reliability.