Malanginspirasi.com – From jamu to Generative AI, pharmacy students at Universitas Ma Chung grow into future pharmacists guided by responsibility, integrity, and commitment to the community.
Through Apothecary Professional Practice, pharmacy students move beyond theory and begin to understand what it means to be responsible for quality, safety, and public trust.
From Empirical Jamu to Scientific Understanding
Learning pharmacy today is very different from the past. Students are no longer expected to simply memorize drug names, formulas, or mechanisms. Instead, they learn how medicines are developed, evaluated, and used in real-life situations.
One of the most unique learning experiences for pharmacy students in Indonesia is learning about traditional herbal medicine, commonly known as jamu. Through this experience, students come to understand that health knowledge does not always start in laboratories, but often comes from community practices shaped by observation and everyday experience. As a lecturer, I often see this as an important moment, when students begin to realize that empirical knowledge is valuable and deserves to be studied seriously.
This understanding helps students see tradition and science as closely linked. Real world experience encourages meaningful questions, while pharmaceutical science offers methods to examine them carefully. As a result, medicines are viewed not just as products, but as a responsibility to patients and the wider community.
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Where Science, Data, and Technology Come Together
As pharmacy students of Universitas Ma Chung progress, learning shifts from understanding tradition to applying science. Through laboratory based activities, they gain practical experience in extract preparation, standardization, and quality evaluation, while learning the importance of accuracy, documentation, and safety.
Students are also introduced to working with data. Databases of active compounds, safety profiles, and pharmacological effects become part of the learning process, supported by digital and AI assisted tools that help organize and explore scientific information. From a teaching perspective, this phase helps students understand that technology is not a shortcut, but a support for careful thinking and sound professional judgement.
Learning Where It Becomes Real: Apothecary Practice in the Traditional Medicine Industry
The learning journey reaches its peak during Apothecary Professional Practice (PKPA), especially in the traditional medicine industry (PKPA IOT). This is where Universitas Ma Chung offers a learning experience that truly stands out.
PKPA IOT is designed as an applied learning space rather than a formal internship. Students are involved in understanding the full workflow of herbal medicine production from raw material handling and extract standardization to quality assurance, regulatory processes, and ethical considerations. With strong facilities and close academic guidance, students clearly see how classroom learning becomes real professional responsibility.
At this stage, we often observe a clear shift. Students become more attentive to procedures, more responsible with data, and more aware that their decisions can directly affect product quality and public trust.
Here is where learning becomes real.
By integrating empirical knowledge, scientific rigor, and modern technology, the apothecary professional practice at Universitas Ma Chung becomes more than a graduation requirement, it becomes a meaningful learning experience.
By : apt. Eva Monica, S.Farm, M.Sc.- Ketua Program Studi Pendidikan Profesi Apoteker
