Off-cycle Interview: a Chat with a Pharmaceutical Journal's E-i-C

For our off-cycle interview, I revisit Borno state (the second time since my 2023 interview with Halima Yusuf Bawah). This time, my chat takes me to the University of Maiduguru.

Abdulrahman is a final year student of the University of Maiduguri, a writer and the Editor-in-chief of the university's Pharmaceutical Association of Nigeria Students' Magazine, PharmaPulse.

ADB's roles include collaborating with the editorial board members to announce call for articles for the monthly magazine publications, going through submitted articles to edit or suggest changes to entries and subsequently accept them for publications. "A pharmacy journal and a literary journal share many similarities," he offers, "although there are also some differences in some aspects. Just as in literary journals, our faculty students' publication also publishes literary contents like short stories and poems, but most of our contents are centred around the pharmaceutical sciences. So there's more chances to see more jargons in a pharmaceutical journal than in a literary journal."

ADB's inspiration to take on the position of Editor-in-Chief, he shares, stems from his passion for reading and writing. "They [reading and writing] have been my hobbies for a long time. Being a writer myself, I have always been inspired by editors, who naturally give meaning to writings. 

"Becoming an e-i-c started with the opportunity to serve as an Editor I on the Editorial Board of our previous faculty students administration. I went all-out hard to learn a lot from my superiors. The past president, an editor himself, also contributed immensely towards my editorial skill development, which helped me to ascend to this position. However, I have high goals I hope to achieve."

ADB's goals for his faculty publication is to see a transition from a monthly publication to a more frequent weekly publication. "With the state of the current board, I am optimistic that our publications would soon be on weekly. For now, our PharmaPulse weeklies is much of a students' newsletter, although we have a comprehensive annual magazine that covers wide ranges of topics. In the weeklies, publish the normal student' magazine stuffs like the activities of the faculty students' body or the faculty at large news on novel discoveries in the field, drug informations, interview sessions which could be with faculty members or mentors among practicing pharmacists. It also contains other students magazine stuffs like interactive sessions with fellow students," he elaborated.

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"In pharmacy-related topics, we always ensure the credibility of our contents by consulting official books such as the British National Formulatory or other similar books or textbooks for the drug related information. However, in regards to innovations or research breakthroughs, we correctly cite the sources, be it in peer reviewed journals or credible online platforms."

Speaking of the team, ADB says collaborating with contributors and other team members to curate informative content for the publication has been one of the major success secrets.

"Besides myself, the editorial board is made up of an Editor I and two associates, in addition to about six members amongst whom are writers and graphics designers. These members help immensely in sourcing contents for our weekly publications by themselves, or from the other faculty students. We also liaise with other committees whenever the need arises, where we extend help or seek for theirs in our respective works."

Personally, ADB says he is optimistic about the editorial prospects that lay ahead for him. "I believe I can contribute immensely even to national or international based peer reviewed scientific journals after here; there is a lot to learn from this experience!"