Community Pharmacist Preceptor Education Program - Library

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state board of pharmacy, can provide guidance on statespecificrequirements and any other issues that should beon your “radar screen.”Building an Effective LearningExperienceNow, let’s look at how you might map out the details ofthe rotation. You will address many important issues whenshaping the rotation to provide an optimal experience for yourstudent pharmacist. These activities range from establishingthe schedule for the rotation to planning activities that willengage the student and promote achievement of the rotation’sgoals and objectives to support the integration of the studentpharmacist into your practice site and community. Inaddition to carefully planning specific learning activities,attention to the infrastructure of the program is essential toa successful rotation experience.Program LogisticsThere are many factors to consider as you begin toestablish the details of the rotation at your site within theschool’s framework. General logistical issues affecting therotation include how long each rotation will last, how manyhours per week student pharmacists will be at the practicesite, and how many student pharmacists you will have atone time. If you host multiple student pharmacists, youwill want to either synchronize their schedules or devisecomplementary activities.The school that you partner with should supplya syllabus with objectives that are to be met during therotation. This syllabus should have been approved by theschool’s faculty and curriculum committees and should bethe foundation for the development of the rotation. Syllabishould include details about assignments, due dates, andother requirements for the rotation. The syllabus caninclude rotation times and dates, grading periods, anddetails of the grading process.Strive to design activities that lend themselves wellto assessments and to the administrative requirements ofthe school, including those outlined in the syllabus. Forexample, if your partner school wants you to report onthe student pharmacist’s progress every 2 weeks, designactivities that allow you to evaluate the student pharmacistshortly before evaluations are due. Follow the existingsyllabus to the extent possible, and use it as a driver for thedevelopment of your educational plans.Make sure you are aware of any requirements orguidelines that the school has for assessing studentpharmacists, so that you can integrate them into your plansfor the rotation. Keep in mind the grading system that theschool uses for rotations (e.g., pass/fail, competency based,or letter grades). Will you be expected to individually assessspecific sets of knowledge and skills, provide an overallassessment, or submit both types of reviews? Factor theseelements into both the development of the activities andyour plans for providing feedback and assessment.Schools should have a process or form for studentpharmacists to evaluate preceptors. You may want todetermine in advance how the student pharmacist willassess you, and how you will receive this feedback.Aligning Activities With Goals andObjectivesIt is essential that you develop rotation activities thatallow the student pharmacist to achieve the objectives andgoals for the rotation. These objectives may be knowledgebased or skill and competency based, and should be designedto help the student achieve the required competenciesof the pharmacy school and prepare the student to be abetter pharmacist. Objectives may relate to providingpatient care services (e.g., organize patient informationin a manner that allows identification and resolution ofdrug-related problems), medication use systems (e.g.,develop, implement, evaluate, and modify a formulary),communication (e.g., provide medication informationto patients), or other pharmacy-related issues. Preceptorsshould develop a plan for meeting all of the objectiveswithin the rotation.IPPE student pharmacists may be expected to gaina number of competencies during the rotation, includingthe development of basic technical skills, knowledge ofpharmacotherapeutics, and improved communicationskills. 3 APPEs generally involve more advanced objectivesthat support the student pharmacist’s ability to provideall aspects of patient care. Challenge student pharmacistsduring APPEs to produce evidence to support therapeuticdecisions and recommendations. Develop activities thatsupport achievement of each objective and develop astrategy to assess that objective.Ensure that you, as a preceptor, understand howthe objectives provided by the school are meaningful andmeasurable within the context of your rotation. Ideally, theobjectives for the rotation will be specific. For example, theobjective, “improve communication skills,” is rather vague.An objective such as “develop the ability to educate patientson the appropriate use of nonprescription medications,”provides greater detail on the outcome that is desiredand is more easily measurable. If there is ambiguity inthe objectives that are provided to you, clarify the desiredoutcome with the school’s department of experientialeducation and request assistance as needed. For example, ifyou are uncertain of how to best meet an objective, ask forguidance. The school’s experiential program administrativeteam can either provide guidance directly or arrange for youto network with other preceptors who are willing to sharetheir experiences with you.You will need to provide sufficient opportunitieswithin the rotation for the student pharmacist to worktoward each objective. For example, if student pharmacistsare to develop skills for communicating with other healthcare providers, you should make certain that the studentpharmacists have adequate interaction with other providers12 APhA and NACDS Foundation
during the rotation.Finally, as you prepare for your student pharmacistand plan the activities for the rotation, consider whatcompetencies you expect your student pharmacist to haveupon arrival at your site, as well as the competencies heor she is expected to develop during the rotation. You willwant to be certain that the activities that you plan for yourstudent pharmacist are realistic based on the expectedbaseline knowledge of the student pharmacist and thedesired outcomes of the rotation.Use Worksheet 5 to help plan activities to supporteach objective and competency that should be achievedduring the rotation, determine where the activity will fitwithin the rotation, and plan the assessment of the activity.(You may find it useful to refer to Table 1 for examples ofactivities to use in IPPEs and APPEs.)Active Learning for Student PharmacistsOne of the goals of pharmacy education is to cultivatepharmacists who enter the workforce as self-motivated,independent, lifelong learners. Not all students approachlearning in this manner when they enter pharmacy school.One of the purposes of the revisions to the APCE guidelinesis to encourage schools to use teaching mechanisms thatwill foster the development of an adult learner attitude.Active learning activities can help student pharmacistspromote an adult learner attitude toward education.Effective preceptors will integrate a number of activelearning activities throughout rotations. Active learningrequires that students solve problems using higher-orderthinking tasks such as analysis, synthesis, and evaluation.Active learning “involve[s] students in doing things andthinking about what they are doing.” 12 Substantial researchin the education field has demonstrated that adults learnmore effectively when they are actively engaged in theirlearning experiences, rather than passive recipients ofinformation. 12 When knowledge is sought to solve aproblem, it is remembered more often than if it is simplyread about out of context. In addition, active learningexperiences can provide frequent, immediate feedback tothe student pharmacists about the knowledge that they doand do not have.Active learning helps student pharmacists to integrateand apply information they learned in the classroom, andsupports the development of critical thinking skills. Manystudent pharmacists and preceptors intuitively assumethat rotations will be active learning experiences because ofnatural interaction in patient care environments. However,many focused active learning activities can be intentionallyimplemented throughout a rotation to reinforce the goalsand objectives of the rotation.For example, “Learn, Do, Teach” is a process thathas been used to help student pharmacists adopt newinformation. First, students are asked to learn newinformation or skills. Next, they are asked to apply theknowledge or use the skills. Finally, they are asked toexplain to someone else what they did and why. Thisprocess reinforces the information and the underlyingrationale for applying it.Some general guidelines for developing andimplementing active learning activities are:■ Aim to tap into and build upon the student’s existingexperiences and knowledge base.■ Allow students to wrestle with the activitiesrather than making them too straightforward orintervening too soon.■ Provide structured time for reflecting and debriefingon each activity.■ Retain enough flexibility in the exercises to be ableto adapt to student-specific issues that arise.■ Avoid “busy work” tasks.The Resources in the back of this workbook containmaterials that you can consult to develop activities that arespecific to your rotation.As you plan activities for the rotation, keep in mindthat the purpose of active learning is to promote quality overquantity. Student pharmacists might not be able to cover asmuch material, but they will be able to more fully learn theinformation that they do cover. Active learning has a higherlikelihood of impacting both immediate understandingand long-term retention of ideas, information, and skills.Therefore, rather than “cramming” a lot of information thatwill soon be forgotten, students internalize the informationthey learn during active learning experiences.In addition, when student pharmacists are required tosolve problems as part of their educational process, they gobeyond surface learning to internalize the information thatwill allow application to novel situations, thereby allowingthem to teach themselves additional content in the future.Role of the Site and the CommunityGood patient care requires pharmacists to havepositive working relationships with physicians and otherhealth care providers. However, pharmacists operatewithin a much larger community and it is important tohelp student pharmacists embrace this reality and providethem with opportunities to interact with the communityby performing a variety of functions. Identifying uniqueopportunities in your community to expand the reach ofthe rotation can help to enrich the student pharmacist’sexperience, reinforce the importance of giving back to thecommunity, and promote interdisciplinary learning.Consider whether there are local health fairs, nursinghomes, or other opportunities for community outreach andscreening in which student pharmacists can participate.Are there opportunities for immunization involvementwith the community? Can student pharmacists provide aservice to the community within the pharmacy? Dependingon their level of proficiency and the expected outcomes ofthe rotation, student pharmacists could perform servicessuch as blood pressure screenings, or conduct classes on ahealth topic of interest to the community.The Community Pharmacist Preceptor Education Program 13
Page 1: The Community Preceptor Education P
Page 5: GLOSSARYAccreditation Council for P
Page 8 and 9: TABLE 2. Sample Responsibilities of
Page 10 and 11: TABLE 4. Conflict Resolution Skills
Page 12 and 13: FIGURE 2. Rotation Calendar Example
Page 18 and 19: TABLE 6. Proactive Statements for S
Page 20 and 21: Open-Ended Questions. Table 8 compa
Page 22 and 23: knowledge bases and can be extremel
Page 24 and 25: e provided consistently throughout
Page 26 and 27: success. It is better to identify a
Page 28 and 29: APPENDIXAccreditation Council for P
Page 33 and 34: WORKSHEET 4. What Learning Experien
Page 35 and 36: WORKSHEET 5. Planning Activities fo
Page 37 and 38: WORKSHEET 6. ProfessionalismUse thi
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