باتريك دارسي (مؤسس أول كلية صيدلة في السودان)

In 1954, MOH requested WHO to send a consultant to advise on pharmacy education. WHO assigned Prof. Mohamed Mohamed Motawea, Prof. of Pharmacology and Dean Faculty of Pharmacy, CairoUniversity to assess the curriculum, facilities, students and graduates of the School of Dispensers. Prof. Motawea, in his mission report, made the following recommendations:

1-     The School of Dispensers should be closed immediately as it does not serve any useful purpose.

2-     A faculty of pharmacy should immediately be established in UCK.

3-     In the meantime and until the faculty of pharmacy is established, selected students can be sent to study pharmacy abroad.

The three recommendations were accepted and followed up by the MOH. In 1961, the government contacted USA Operation Mission to Sudan, which offered to train three batches of selected secondary school graduates at the Faculty of Pharmacy of the American University of Beirut (AUB) in 1961, 1962 and 1963. Prof. Ibrahim took part in the selection and processing of the first group of six secondary school graduates who were appointed by the MOH and started their studies at AUB in 1961.[i] A second group of two students followed in 1962 and a third and last group of four followed in 1963. Most of these students returned five years later as graduate pharmacists, but fewer than half of them chose to stay and work in the public sector.

The MOH, which was well represented in the FOM, UK and in the UK Council, used its influence to convince UK institutions to endorse and follow up on the need to establish a Faculty of Pharmacy. In 1962, a decision was taken to that effect. Prof. Patrick F. D’Arcy,[ii] Prof. of Pharmacology at The Queen’s University of Belfast and Prof. of Pharmacology, FOM, UK at the time, was appointed as the first founding Dean of the new Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Khartoum (FOP, UK). He was assigned the task of establishing and preparing the faculty to receive its first batch of pharmacy undergraduates who would be selected to spend their first session 1963-64 of the five-year Bachelor of Pharmacy course in the Faculty of Science. They would start their second session in 1964 in the new Faculty of Pharmacy. It was a great challenge to Prof. D’Arcy who managed to formulate the 4-year pharmacy curriculum, recruit expatriate academic staff, prepare temporary lecture rooms and laboratories and receive his first batch of eighteen Pharmacy undergraduates in 1964, as planned, after completing their first year course in the Faculty of Science.

Prof. D’Arcy appointed a number of newly graduated Sudanese pharmacists as academic assistants to be trained and eventually qualified as lecturers. He was also able to recruit a number of qualified Sudanese chemists as lecturers in organic chemistry, analytical chemistry and pharmacology. In 1967, Prof. D’Arcy was superceded by Dr Ibrahim Gasim Mokhier, who became the first Sudanese Dean. In 1968, the first batch of eighteen pharmacists graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in pharmacy from FOP, UK.

In support of the newly established Faculty, Prof. Abdel Hamid Ibrahim allowed two of the NCL chemists (the late Prof. Rifaat Botrous and the late Associate Prof. Mobarak Ali Karrar) to be permanently transferred to the Faculty of Pharmacy to relieve its staff shortage. Prof. Ibrahim later became a member of the Faculty Board of Pharmacy during the period 1969-1972 by virtue of his post of Director CMS. For many years, he has been an external examiner in faculty examinations and supervisor and/or external examiner to many postgraduate pharmacy students.

The School of Dispensers was finally closed when the pharmacy students completed their first session and moved to the Faculty of Pharmacy in 1964.

In 1966, MOH established a school of pharmaceutical assistants who (like other medical assistants) were selected from qualified nurses from different provincial hospitals and given a training course of two years.

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[i] The six students were Abdel-Rahman Al-Rasheed Sid Ahmed, Gasim Ibrahim Gasim

Mokheir, Mohamed Hamed Abdalla, Hassan Mohamed Ahmed Hassan, Mohamed Awad Omer El Huwaig, and Abdel Azim El Sheikh Medani.

[ii] Patrick F. D’Arcy (1927-2001), OBE, Bpharm, PhD, DSc, DSc (Hon), FRPharmS, Cchem, FRSC, FPSNI. Prof. Emeritus of Pharmacy in The Queen’s University of Belfast, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom, formerly Prof. of Pharmacology and Dean, Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Khartoum, Sudan (1962-1967).

Prof. Patrick F. D’Arcy (1927-2001), OBE, Bpharm, PhD, DSC, DSC (Hon), FRPharmS, Cchem, FRSC, FPSNI. Prof. Emeritus of Pharmacy in The Queen’s University of Belfast, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom, formerly Prof. of Pharmacology and Dean, Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Khartoum, Sudan (1962-1967).

Professor D’Arcy was assigned the task of establishing and preparing the faculty to receive its first batch of pharmacy undergraduates who would be selected to spend their first session 1963-64 of the five-year Bachelor of Pharmacy course in the Faculty of Science, University of Khartoum. They would start their second session in 1964 in the new Faculty of Pharmacy. It was a great challenge to Prof. D’Arcy who managed to formulate the 4-year pharmacy curriculum, recruit expatriate academic staff, prepare temporary lecture rooms and laboratories and receive his first batch of eighteen Pharmacy undergraduates in 1964, as planned, after completing their first year course in the Faculty of Science.

Prof. D’Arcy appointed a number of newly graduated Sudanese pharmacists as academic assistants to be trained and eventually qualified as lecturers. He was also able to recruit a number of qualified Sudanese chemists as lecturers in organic chemistry, analytical chemistry and pharmacology. In 1967, Prof. D’Arcy was superseded by Dr Ibrahim Gasim Mokhier, who became the first Sudanese Dean. In 1968, the first batch of eighteen pharmacists graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in pharmacy from FOP, UK.

Based on the Wellcome Research Laboratories Reports,[1] D’Arcy wrote Laboratory on the Nile: A History of the Wellcome Tropical Research Laboratories.[2] The book, which he opened with Surat Al-Fatihah (The Opening) of the Noble Quran, described the inception of WTRLK, their progression to world-renowned centres of excellence of research in tropical diseases, and their demise. D’Arcy’s book, as its name implied, gave a full account of the legendary floating laboratory, which is worthy of reading about.

Concluding remark

The life and work of these two pharmacists, has to be known and taught. Posterity has to perpetuate the creed of philanthropy and scientific excellence that the life of the two scientists demonstrated so clearly.