Overview of a co-curricular professional development program in a college of pharmacy (original) (raw)

2017, Currents in Pharmacy Teaching and Learning

The goal of a professional program at a school or college of pharmacy is to produce competent and professional pharmacy practitioners. In 2009, The American College of Clinical Pharmacy published a white paper to assist in the teaching of professionalism in schools/colleges of pharmacy to include traits such as responsibility, commitment to excellence, respect for others, honesty and integrity, and care with compassion. In February 2015, the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education released their updated accreditation standards (Standards 2016) which introduced the concept of co-curricular activities (Standard 12.3): experiences that complement, augment, and/or advance what is learned in the formal didactic and experiential curriculum. This article details the Professional Development Curriculum at Western University of Health Sciences (WesternU) College of Pharmacy as a potential educational model that promotes professionalism through mandating co-curricular activities for student pharmacists. Background and purpose The goal of a Doctor of Pharmacy (PharmD) program is to produce competent and professional pharmacy practitioners. Imparting knowledge and skills is the main focus, but that covers only part of developing pharmacists. The admission process aims to select candidates with high moral character and professional behavior; however, the burden still lies on educational institutions to transform these candidates from student pharmacists into professionals with corresponding skills, behaviors, and values, as well as starting the process of lifelong professional socialization. The acquisition of such characteristics (often referred to in health care practice as "professionalism" or "professionalization") is commonly part of a "hidden curriculum," a process that enculturates student pharmacists and instills values, habits, attitudes, paradigms, and biases-much of it transmitted unknowingly using no formal systems. 1 While the 2016 Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education (ACPE) Standards refer to a group of activities similar to these concepts as a "co-curriculum", this terminology was not in use at the time this conceptual framework was laid down. 2 In the context of pharmacy practice, there is a lack of uniform consensus about what exactly constitutes professionalism, leading to challenges in developing effective educational interventions that can help instill and reinforce the aspects of professionalism within student pharmacists. 1 Regardless, students acknowledge that pharmacy programs should be teaching concepts of professionalism, and they often view faculty members as appropriate conveyors and role models of professional behavior. 1 Previous conceptual