Objective. To measure the impact of an interprofessional education intervention in which pharmacy students provided education to medical students. Methods. In a required workshop, fourth-year pharmacy students taught second-year medical students the basics of prescription writing. In a subsequent selective education session, the pharmacy students led a case-based discussion on nonprescription drug use for third-year medical students on their family medicine rotation. The pharmacy students were surveyed in regards to confidence in teaching abilities before and after the prescription writing workshop and the medical students were surveyed in regards to confidence with activity and teaching effectivess prior to and after the completion of the workshop or selective. Results. At the end of the workshop, second-year medical students were more confident in their abilities to write prescriptions and fourth-year pharmacy students were more confident in their ability to teach prescription writing. Based on survey responses, the second-year medical students and fourthyear pharmacy students were confident in the learning environment effectiveness throughout the activity. After participating in the selective education session, third-year medical students were more confident in their ability to access resources on nonprescription drugs and in making recommendations to and counseling patients regarding nonprescription drug use. Conclusion. The perception is that pharmacy students can be effective interprofessional educators for medical students on key aspects of the medical curriculum.

Change in health status was the strongest predictor of non-therapeutic INR levels out of the investigational factors evaluated. Our study demonstrated that there are many aetiologies for non-therapeutic INR values that were not explained by our investigational factors.

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Objective. To develop a rubric using an expert consensus building process for multiple evaluators to assess student performance of patient communication. Methods. Faculty and staff from six colleges/schools of pharmacy collaborated on a multi-step expert consensus building process to create a final version of a communication rubric. First, faculty and patient content experts evaluated each item in the rubric for its relevance, criticality, and global comprehensiveness using a 5-point Likert scale (0=not at all, 4=to a high extent). Data was analyzed through descriptive statistics. Faculty members evaluated the results and came to consensus on the second version of the rubric. A corresponding codebook was developed and refined through a two-phase process.Results. The initial communication rubric was evaluated by 13 expert reviewers. Mean global comprehensiveness on the rubric was 3.83 for faculty experts and 3.5 for patient experts. After evaluating results from the expert consensus building, 14 items on the rubric did not change, five items were revised, three items were removed, and two items were added. The second version of the instrument included 20 items in six topic areas. A codebook was finalized to increase scoring consistency of the 20-communication items. Conclusion.Overall, content experts reported high global comprehensiveness of the rubric. Faculty collaborations from multiple schools of pharmacy resulted in a 20-item communication rubric and codebook that can be used to increase student scoring consistency.

Accommodating pharmacy students with physical disabilities during the experiential learning portion of the Doctor of Pharmacy curriculum can present unique challenges for pharmacy schools. The available literature on accommodations for pharmacy students in the experiential learning environment is sparse, leaving programs with little guidance. This commentary from the Big Ten Academic Alliance calls on the academy to create a community of shared resources and best practice examples and offers practical suggestions for accommodating pharmacy students with mobility, vision, and auditory disabilities during Introductory Pharmacy Practice Experiences (IPPEs) and Advanced Pharmacy Practice Experiences (APPEs).