Academic Pharmacy's Role in Advancing Practice and Assuring Quality in Experiential Education: Report of the 2003–2004 Professional Affairs Committee

Abstract

According to the Bylaws of the AACP, the Professional Affairs Committee is to study issues associated with professional practice as they relate to pharmaceutical education, and to establish and improve working relationships with all other organizations in the field of health affairs. The Committee is also encouraged to address related agenda items relevant to its Bylaws charge and to identify issues for consideration by subsequent committees, task forces, commissions, or other groups.Consistent with a theme of examining AACP's role in promoting quality and making pharmaceutical care a reality in all practice settings, the Professional Affairs Committee was asked to focus on how AACP might foster organizational improvement and success among its institutional members in establishing a standard of pharmacy practice through improved development and evaluation of experiential learning and experiential learning sites. President-elect Robert A. (Buzz) Kerr specifically charged the 2003-04 AACP Professional Affairs Committee to:• Review "Approaching the Millenium," the 1997 Report of the AACP Janus Commission, 1 which focused on the academy's dual responsibility of educating graduates capable of providing pharmaceutical care and enabling the profession to achieve its vision of providing pharmaceutical care in all settings. Consider the recommendations of this report related to the evaluation of the comprehensive system of education/practice partnerships and interprofessional relationships that support quality professional experiential education. Identify key suggestions and information to forward for consideration by ACPE in the accreditation standards and guidelines revision process related to pharmacy practice experience education, services, and facilities.• Suggest appropriate professional experience program assessment measures or quality indicators that guide institutions in responding to "How do you know if you have a quality professional experience education program?" Students' experiential education should occur in settings with the "highest" or "exemplary" standards of pharmaceutical care practice. How do you recognize "exemplary" pharmaceutical services? The committee should suggest institutional research elements needed to provide evidence of a quality experiential education program and its elements (ie, the learning experiences, the practice environment, and the practitioner-educators). Background information and resource materials were distributed to committee members prior to a conference call on September 26, 2003. During the conference call the Committee shared preliminary views and discussed their approach to the charge. They decided to begin with identifying quality elements of the components of advanced practice experience which would suggest the areas of focus for the academy in assisting the profession to achieve the implementation of pharmaceutical care as the universal practice performance standard. 1 There was agreement that quality in experiential education is a result of the preceptor (practitio...

Student-Valued Measurable Teaching Behaviors of Award-Winning Pharmacy Preceptors

“…6 This committee was charged with identifying how academic pharmacy could improve development and evaluation of experiential learning, and one of their recommendations was that AACP should facilitate development of standard assessment instruments for preceptor evaluation and quality assurance for use at all schools of pharmacy. This study may contribute to the evidence base for instrument development.…”

“…[4][5][6] Only themes describing measurable behaviors were applied to this grouping. The finalized theme descriptions were then translated to statements of measurable behaviors using verbs from the higher levels of Krathwohl's affective domain, since the affective domain best describes exhibited behaviors.…”

“…4 As facilitators, preceptors create the infrastructure within a practice site that fosters and supports student learning. 6 Coaching and teaching in the practice environment involve instruction by the preceptor and interaction between student and preceptor, and thus, are difficult to distinguish and easier to evaluate if merged. The teacher-coach role is different from role modeling, where students learn from the role model, often subconsciously, through sensory application (seeing and listening) and emulation (or a conscious decision to not emulate).…”

A Strategy to Develop Advanced Pharmacy Practice Experiences

“…1,5 Individual schools and colleges must decide how best to achieve that objective and the traditional and still well-established approach has been to provide students with an initial didactic education followed by APPE training which relies on preceptors to teach students how to apply knowledge in practice settings. 4,32,33 However, that approach means students arrive at APPE practice sites as dependent rather than independent learners. This enhances the view that students are likely to disrupt rather than enhance normal pharmacy operations.…”

“…1 Consequently, experiential educators are faced with the challenges of improving the quality of introductory and advanced pharmacy practice experience (IPPE and APPE) courses and increasing the quantity of experiential training sites. [2][3][4][5][6][7] Accreditation standards state that upon graduation students must be competent to practice independently and ensure optimal medication therapy outcomes through multiple means including medication and disease management programs. 1 To meet those standards, the University of Colorado at Denver and Health Sciences Center School of Pharmacy (UCDHSC-SOP) has taken the position that students should be taught the competencies required for pharmacy practice early in the curriculum [8][9][10][11] and that students in APPE courses should be given the responsibility to apply those competencies in practice settings.…”