Students sharpen skills at Isthmus

Over 500 students of SVKM School of Pharmacy and Technology Management (SPTM), Vile Parle, participated in the third edition of Isthmus, an annual corporate healthcare event started in 2008 to bridge the gap between industry and academia in pharmacy.

Isthmus 2010, a two-day event, kick-started on Monday with a symposium, ‘Emerge’, which provided a platform for students to interact with industry bigwigs such as Rammohan Bhave, former CFO of ACG Worldwide. “We had three speakers who have substantial experience in the pharma sector. They spoke about their success and how they became world leaders. We also got an opportunity to question them on the methods they used to achieve success in their field,” said Ankita Kothari, one of the organisers.

Students of several other pharmacy courses from institutes such as Bombay College of Pharmacy, Kalina, Hiranandani College of Pharmacy, Ulhasnagar, Mithibai Pharmacy College, and CU Shah College of Pharmacy, SNDT University etc., also participated in the events organised during the event.

Students also took part in a quiz and poster-it-out competition, which allow amateur creative heads to give their pharma aptitude an effective platform. “We had over 50 entries this year from across the country. The poster competition comprised various topics, such as medical tourism in India, management of a pandemic situation etc.,” explained Kothari.

The final round of the poster competition will be conducted on Tuesday, and the winning team will be rewarded for its creativity with a trip to Kuala Lumpur. The second day of the programme will give students another opportunity to brush shoulders with the leaders in the pharma industry, and to understand aspects such as entrepreneurship, employability quotient of the newly graduates etc.

“The vision was to better equip the students to face the industry and its challenges, take up responsibility, and gain first-hand exposure. It is a student-driven event, and since the last two years, students have shown overwhelming enthusiasm and very well-coordinated efforts to make it bigger and better than the previous one,” said Meena Chintamaneni, chairperson of SPTM.