An Elective Course for Student Pharmacists on Pharmaceutical Industry Practice

Abstract

Objective. To design and implement an elective course on pharmaceutical industry practice and assess its impact on student pharmacists' knowledge and perceptions. Methods. This was a two-credit hour, elective course offered to second-and third-year student pharmacists during the 2015 and 2016 spring semesters. The goal of this course was to provide instruction regarding skills and competencies for pharmaceutical industry practice. Curricular content included didactic instruction, assigned readings, weekly quizzes, classroom discussion of industry-based functions and responsibilities, and three application projects. A 65-item survey instrument was developed to assess changes in student pharmacists' perceptions and understanding of pharmaceutical industry practice.Results. Forty-four students enrolled in the elective course over the two offerings. The average rating on the course evaluation was 4.7 out of 5. Average scores on graded quizzes were 90%, and grades on the application projects ranged from 92% to 99%. There was an increase in the number of students who perceived that they understood various functions and roles in the pharmaceutical industry, and who rated themselves confident in completing unique tasks associated with pharmaceutical industry practice. Furthermore, there was an increase in the number of students who reported improved perceptions regarding the trustworthiness of the pharmaceutical industry, costs of prescription medications, and promotional advertising for branded prescription medication. Conclusion. Student pharmacists' perceptions of the course were positive, and overall perceptions and understanding of the pharmaceutical industry improved. Active collaboration between colleges and pharmaceutical companies can lead to positive educational opportunities for students interested in pharmaceutical industry careers.

An Integrative Review of Approaches Used to Assess Course Interventions

“…8,9 Academic performance was used most commonly. Examples of metrics that were used to study the academic performance were average final course scores, 20,[25][26][27] a range of final course scores, 28,29 , average student scores on various course assessments such as examinations, 20-22, 24-26, 30, 31 quizzes, 20,23,32,33 or other assignments. 20,26,27,33,34 In a few cases where the course intervention was limited to a certain part of the course the metric used to assess academic performance was not the entire assessment but the score on a group of questions that were related to the intervention.…”

“…12,15,16 Frequently, the description of survey results included the survey questions and student responses. 12,15,18,23,27,[31][32][33][34][38][39][40][41][42][43][44] Depending on the research question there may be a need to administer a pre-and a postsurvey. This may be particularly important when the survey measures changes from a baseline prior to the intervention.…”

“…Hence, in all the studies that appear in Table 3 that included a survey about confidence the survey was administered as a pre-and post-survey. As suggested in the literature 45 and conducted in some of the studies that we analyzed, 28,32,35,39,42 it is advantageous to pretest the survey on a group of students who are potential responders to the survey. Some of the studies in Table 3 that included survey administration collected basic demographic information such as the respondents' age and/or gender.…”

“…Some of the studies in Table 3 that included survey administration collected basic demographic information such as the respondents' age and/or gender. 27,28,30,31,38,41,42,46 Several studies asked about past experiences related to the intervention, 27,30,32,33,41,42 such as prior participation in a course that may have provided background information to the students. 46,47 An advantage of a report regarding demographics 3 is that it enables a better understanding regarding the generalizability of the study, 5 in particular when studies regarding a course intervention by nature almost always describe a course in one institution, with only one exception in the articles that we analyzed.…”

Simulation of drug information skills in the medical information department

“…Pharmacy programmes within the U.S. are offering opportunities to learn and apply DI skills in the pharmaceutical industry setting through elective courses (Hartman et al, 2014;Jacob et al, 2019). Hartman and authors in 2014 provided a lecture on the formulation of a response to a drug inquiry using internal medical information databases and discussed the role of a pharmacist in medical information.…”