A Service Learning Experience for Pharmacy Students Involving Unwanted Medication Collection

This poster outlining a serve learning experience of students in Purdue’s pharmacy program was presented at the IMPACT Symposium 2014

Developing a Mobile Application: Improving Health Care Students’ Ability to Communicate

The purpose of this project was to develop, pilot, assess, and describe a new interdisciplinary, game-based phone application. The application is intended to help health care students better communicate medication and medical terminology to their patients and to other health care providers and insurance companies. This IRB-approved project called “PharmPhrase” was developed using an application-development software program. The pilot involved multiple groups of competing teams composed of volunteer pharmacy students in their first professional years who were randomly assigned into teams of three to five. The PharmPhrase user explains a randomly generated medical term to team members based on assumptions of medical literacy within the team. If team members do not understand or identify the term, the user must rephrase their explanation in order to win the play. Teams rotate and play until time is up. The application is intended to be an active learning teaching tool to help move students’ conceptual knowledge to application in order to better serve the public. Pilot results with pharmacy students demonstrated increased perception of knowledge and an increased ability to adapt communication style to their patients’ needs

A Course on Patient Safety: Pharmacy Student and Community Partner Perceptions

The authors of this article developed and piloted a three-week intensive elective course for students in their third professional years in the Doctor of Pharmacy program. The goal of this course was to provide students with an opportunity to apply patient safety concepts in a real-world setting using service-learning as the pedagogy and to evaluate student perceptions of the course for potential implementation in the curriculum. Seven pharmacy students were enrolled in the pilot course and divided into three groups. Each group of two to three students was assigned to one of three predetermined community partner sites. Students were instructed on how to perform a needs assessment before designing a project targeted to improve safety at their community sites. Students completed a pre-, retrospective pre-, and post-course questionnaire that assessed their perceptions of the course. Community partners provided feedback to their student groups, and the results were analyzed to determine whether a large-scale course should be developed for the curriculum. Ultimately, results from this pilot course suggest that offering pharmacy-based, service-learning experiences in safety may be beneficial for the professional development of the students, as well as for the local community

National Survey of Introductory Pharmacy Practice Experience Programs

Objective: The objective of this study was to identify commonalities and provide a descriptive overview of key program elements and oversight of U.S. introductory pharmacy practice experience (IPPE) programs. Methods: A Web-based questionnaire, consisting of 40 questions, was sent to 91 schools of pharmacy. The questionnaire addressed the following IPPE program topics, in addition to school demographics: program oversight, experience site selection, program structure, relationship to didactic curriculum, and quality assurance issues. Results: Forty-six schools of pharmacy responded resulting in a response rate of 50.5%. Results identified commonalities in each of the key areas, as well as identifying multiple discrepancies in interpretation of the 2007 Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education (ACPE) Standards and Guidelines (Standards 2007) for IPPEs. Only 21 of 42 respondents indicated they believed their IPPE program was currently in compliance with Standards 2007. Conclusion: The survey results demonstrate a need for clarification by ACPE stakeholders in several areas addressed within the Standards 2007. No other previous research surveys were found addressing the key issues identified in this survey, revealing the need for additional research on IPPE programs within pharmacy school curricula

Unused Medication Collection: An Emerging Service-Learning Experience for Pharmacy Students

While the U.S. makes up around 5% of the world’s population, we consume approximately 75% of the world’s prescription drugs—well over 4 billion prescriptions per year. Approximately one third of those are never used, creating an array of public health challenges. These challenges include land and water pollution; unintentional inappropriate use and unintentional human, pet, and wildlife poisonings; and intentional drug abuse and diversion. Misuse of prescription drugs now exceeds that of all illegal drugs combined. Reducing the number of medications prescribed is of primary importance, as well as collecting unnecessary medications from households and disposing of them through environmentally friendly methods. There are a variety of medication collection methods, including public take-back events, permanent drop boxes at pharmacies, collection by police departments, as well as prepaid mailers available from some pharmacies and the Internet. When bulk medication is collected at take-back events or by police departments, it is generally quantified as “pounds collected,” with no determination of specific medications collected, quantities of prescribed medications left unused, or length of household storage beyond the expiration date. Pharmacy students are uniquely positioned to explore these unknowns and develop solutions with their high level of drug expertise. This research study combined with community service events involved the collaboration of pharmacy students with environmentalists, community volunteers, and law enforcement officers to collect and analyze unwanted medications, as well as explore factors pertinent to this public hazard

Student and Community Perceptions on Reasons for Medication Non-Adherence

Abstract The purpose of this research was to improve medication adherence by exploring and reflecting on differences in the perceptions of pharmacy students and the public regarding factors contributing to medication non-adherence. Two hundred eighty six pharmacy students and 310 patients participated in this study. Patients were recruited by pharmacy students from Midwest community pharmacies, while the students completed an experiential rotation. Students identified their patients based on evidence of non-adherence from medication profiles and asked patients to participate in the assignment. Data was collected over a four-year period, resulting in two years of information on patient perceptions and two years on student perceptions. The researchers’ ranked the data and examined it in light of medication adherence literature. The researchers found a significant difference between patients\u27 and students\u27 rankings of reasons for medication non-adherence. (4.38, 3.42), t (15) = 5.11, p \u3c .001, d =1.27. Although patients and students were in agreement with the top three factors contributing to non-adherence, there were important differences between student and patient perceptions in regard to 13 additional reasons. Medications that interfere with lifestyle, sexual health and drinking alcohol are significant issues for patients, whereas, students believed that confusion and lack of understanding were primary problems. Opportunities to understand and reflect on the dissonance in perceptions of student pharmacists and their patients provides an avenue for medication adherence instruction. Medication adherence education can be situated in experiential education to ensure that training translates into clinical expertise