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leadership program, each fellow is matched with a mentor
who is asked to guide and support the fellows as they learn
how to apply lessons and skills gained through their fellowship experience after their return to Africa. Fellows participate in daily leadership classes, site visits, and community
service activities. Volunteer faculty mentors are asked to meet
with their fellow before or after these planned activities.
The Mandela Fellows program is an example of international efforts to improve health care at the level of more
developed countries such as the United States, Canada, and
United Kingdom. These efforts are also opportunities for
health-system pharmacy leaders to contribute to improving
the practice of pharmacy in other countries. The goal of this
article is to use the example of the MWF program as an
example to increase awareness of the pharmacy director's
role in growing the contemporary role of pharmacists
around the world. Specifically this article will discuss the
MWF, areas of opportunity to impact pharmacy practice
through this fellowship and others, and provide some guidance to pharmacy directors who are asked to participate in
similar programs. These types of programs represent leadership opportunities that may not be apparent to most
pharmacy directors, but expanding their view to helping
international pharmacists expand their practice only
strengthens the professional goal of providing patient-centered pharmacy services.

Mandela Washington Fellowship
The 2016 class included 1 fellow who is a pharmacist (C.U.)
from Nigeria. The following steps were taken with C.U. to
complete his fellowship. In addition, a faculty member from
the college of pharmacy and a clinical infectious diseases
(ID) pharmacist at the Ohio State University Wexner Medical
center (D.G.) was chosen as the Mandela faculty member for
C.U.

Identifying Areas of Interest
The first 2-hour mentoring session identified 7 areas of interest and value to C.U. (Table 1). D.G. invited a pharmacy
master's resident to also participate in the mentoring program acting as both a mentor to the MWF fellow and a mentee of the pharmacy faculty mentor. Time was spent getting
to know each other both personally and professionally. In
addition, we established a schedule, goals, and responsibilities for the mentee.

Developing Cultural Awareness
Cultural integration in both social events and professional
practice is important especially for first time visitors to a
new country. C.U. attended a 4th of July celebration hosted
by the mentor and the OSU fund-raising triathlon event
that the mentor participated in. Both of these events were

Hospital Pharmacy 52(7)
Table 1. Mentoring Topics Identified.
1. Cultural awareness and ability to factor culture into decisionmaking process
2. Compare each country's pharmacy educational system
3. Discuss the current practice of pharmacy and vision for the
future
4. Understand the leadership structure of the Department of
Pharmacy
5. Learn how drugs are purchased and supply chain logistics
6. Understand the role of the pharmacist on the antimicrobial
stewardship team
7. Explore ways to collaborate in scholarly works

new cultural experiences for C.U. In addition, C.U. socialized with the pharmacy master's resident to gain a student's perspective of life on a college campus. During the
cultural awareness discussions, we learned that the role of
a hospital pharmacist, the process used to procure drugs
both within the hospital setting and over the counter, and
lack of multidisciplinary patient care teams in Nigerian
hospitals were significantly different between our 2 countries. Without this cultural awareness, a mentor may recommend an idea that would be culturally insensitive or
inappropriate.

Opportunities to Impact International
Pharmacy Practice
The advent of the Mandela Fellowship and the connection to
Ohio State developed opportunities for the department to
learn about other pharmacy practices, but also work with
C.U. to help him translate some of his learning from the
United States to Nigeria. To accomplish this, C.U. provided
a background to Ohio State on the pharmacy education systems, operational and administrative processes of Nigerian
pharmacy. This led to developing a specific plan for C.U. to
develop additional skills in health-system pharmacy management and leadership that C.U. could take back to Nigeria
for implementation and evaluation.

Review of the Nigerian Pharmacy Education
System
Pharmacy education in Nigeria dates back to the late 19th
century and is known to have evolved mainly through 3
phases of development; first, dispensers were trained through
informal apprenticeship style of the observe-learn-practice
model. This typically lasted through the years of 1887 to
1923. The second phase introduced the use of formal schools
of pharmacy for chemists and druggists between 1924 and
1961 and 2 schools of pharmacy either located on the Southern
(School of Pharmacy, Yaba) and Northern (School of
Pharmacy, Zaria) regions. Last, the training of "pharmacists"
became standard after the 1960 Independence.3 The Ahmadu

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