Abstract:

Background: At the University of Colorado School of Pharmacy, the professional skills courses are a five-semester longitudinal course sequence intended to develop a broad range of skills necessary for pharmacy practice. It is designed to parallel the didactic portion of the curriculum, integrating and applying essential knowledge, skills and attitudes. Students are expected to practice and refine a variety of skills through collaborative and individual activities. This course was designed based on the hypothesis that students will actively participate in learning activities, be self-directed, independent, take responsibility for their learning and work to achieve their potential. The course directors, create a learning environment to facilitate this philosophy.

Methods: Throughout the skills curriculum various activities are developed to enhance the didactic lectures. Activities include: student directed and faculty facilitated problem based learning, patient cases in small group format, small group topic discussions, faculty facilitated mock rounds, physician/pharmacy student telephone communications, physical exams techniques, patient counseling with standardized patients and videotaped pharmacist/patient interactions allowing students to assess the scenario and write chart notes. Students are assessed via a variety of techniques including telephone communications, oral structured clinical exams, patient counseling, open access cased based practicals and traditional written exams. Students are also graded on professionalism. At the end of the semesters students were asked questions regarding the instructional activities, course content, and student performance of the professional skills course. A five point Likert rating scale was used. (1 strongly disagree, 2 disagree, 3 neither agree nor disagree, 4 agree, 5 strongly agree) Students were also allowed to provide additional comments regarding these specific areas of the course.

Results: In regard to instructional activities of the professional skills course, students agreed the instructional activities helped them comprehend the connection between health sciences and pharmacy practice (mean 4.1), contributed to their learning about the practice of pharmacy (mean 4.1) and were helpful in raising awareness of professional behavior, attitudes and ethical expectations relevant to pharmacy practice (mean 4.1). In relation to course content, students agreed the course complemented what they learned in other didactic courses (mean 4.3). In regard to student performance, students agreed they were able to communicate more clearly as a result of this course (mean 4.1). Students also agreed they felt more confident in their ability to critically think (mean 4.1), problem-solve (mean 4.2), make clinical decisions (mean 4.1), and to pursue life-long learning (mean 4.1) after completing the professional skills development course.

Conclusion: The professional skills course is designed to use the knowledge learned during didactic lectures to develop the skills necessary to problem solve, critically think and make clinical decisions. This course lends continuity and cohesiveness to the entire pharmacy curriculum and is much needed in the field medicine. The course complements the didactic course work and affords students the opportunity to integrate information throughout their education and to progress towards achievement of professional, academic and personal goals.