Bullying in the Clinical Training of Pharmacy Students

Objective. To determine whether bullying is a significant factor in the clinical training of pharmacy students.Methods. The literature as well as the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education (ACPE) Standards and American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy (AACP) surveys were reviewed for mention and/or measurement of bullying behaviors in the clinical training of pharmacy students. The authors used a Delphi process to define bullying behavior. The consensus definition was used to analyze 2,087 in-house student evaluations of preceptors for evidence of bullying behaviors. The authors mapped strings of text from in-house student comments to different, established categories of bullying behaviors.Results. The ACPE Standards and AACP surveys contained no mention or measures of bullying. The 2013 AACP survey data reported overwhelmingly positive preceptor ratings. Of the 2,087 student evaluations of preceptors, 119 (5.7%) had at least 1 low rating. Within those 119 survey instruments, 34 comments were found describing bullying behaviors. Students’ responses to the AACP survey were similar to data from the national cohort.Conclusions. Given the evidence that bullying behaviors occur in pharmacy education and that bullying has long-term and short-term damaging effects, more attention should be focused on this problem. Efforts should include addressing bullying in ACPE Standards and AACP survey tools developing a consensus definition for bullying and conducting more research into bullying in the clinical training of pharmacy students.     

Interprofessional Education: Definitions, Student Competencies, and Guidelines for Implementation

Interprofessional education (IPE) is an important step in advancing health professional education for many years and has been endorsed by the Institute of Medicine as a mechanism to improve the overall quality of health care. IPE has also become an area of focus for the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy (AACP), with several groups, including these authors from the AACP Interprofessional Education Task Force, working on developing resources to promote and support IPE planning and development. This review provides background on the definition of IPE, evidence to support IPE, the need for IPE, student competencies and objectives for IPE, barriers to implementation of IPE, and elements critical for successfully implementing IPE.     

Mirror to ASHP: 1942-1992.

Highlights from the history of ASHP are presented on the occasion of the Society's 50th anniversary. Efforts to organize a formal group representing hospital pharmacists, begun in the 1920s, resulted in the formation of a subsection on hospital pharmacy of the American Pharmaceutical Association in 1936. In 1942, ASHP became a distinct organization affiliated with APhA. The body's goals were to establish minimum standards for pharmaceutical services, ensure a supply of well-qualified hospital pharmacists by providing hospital internships, facilitate information exchange, and foster cost-effective use of medicines. The development of practice standards and periodic surveys of hospital pharmaceutical services, educational efforts and accreditation programs, publications, and ASHP's role in the development of principles for hospital formulary systems are described. ASHP's endorsement of unit dose drug distribution and systems for preparation of intravenous admixtures is discussed. The evolution of pharmacists' clinical roles, their increased involvement in drug therapy decisions and the provision of drug information to patients, and the expanded responsibility implicit in the pharmaceutical care concept are traced. Today's ASHP members can build on the work of yesterday's members to provide better pharmaceutical care.     

Pharmacists' attitudes regarding quality of worklife.

OBJECTIVE: To examine the quality of worklife of pharmacists across practice environments. DESIGN: Written survey mailed to a stratified random sample of pharmacists. PARTICIPANTS: 2,014 pharmacist-members of the American Pharmaceutical Association (APhA) residing in the United States. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Work-related attitudes including job satisfaction, career satisfaction, organizational commitment, turnover intention, likelihood of voting for a union, and patient care issues. RESULTS: Usable surveys were returned by 1,199 practicing APhA members (60% response rate). Overall, work-related attitudes were generally positive. However, clear differences were identified in quality-of-worklife perceptions associated with practice setting, area of primary responsibility, and several demographic variables. Some quality-of-worklife concerns were found in all practice settings. While a majority of respondents indicated that they would not vote for a union at their place of employment if given the opportunity, 43% of staff employee pharmacists (who would likely be targeted in any union campaign) indicated that they would definitely or probably vote for a union. CONCLUSION: From the pharmacist's perspective, important quality-of-worklife issues include job and career satisfaction, turnover intention, and patient care concerns. The data provide a point of departure for future dialogue, action, and research aimed at understanding and enhancing the quality of pharmacists' worklife.     

Proceedings of the American Pharmaceutical Association: JAPhA centennial celebration

From the beginning, APhA recognized and embraced the mission of keeping its members and all pharmacists informed and engaged in the progress of the profession. For the entire period encompassed by the Proceedings, print runs were for 1,000 copies or more, a far greater number than the membership list, which allowed for distribution to a broad audience both domestically and internationally. However, it was the meetings in 1856 and 1857 establishing the Report on the Progress of Pharmacy and the publication of NF in 1888 that truly moved the Association to the role of a major provider of information to the pharmacists of America.     

Gender inequity: Enough talk,time for action

While gender inequity has been shown to be an ongoing issue in the pharmacy profession, it has moved to the forefront due to increasing numbers of women in pharmacy. Two national organizations, American Pharmacists Association (APhA) and American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy (AACP) convened a joint Gender Equity Task Force to examine this matter among social and administrative sciences pharmacy faculty. The Task Force launched a survey and conducted interviews, as well as held several forums to solicit recommendations. This commentary provides recommendations for pharmacy constituents and stakeholders regarding: training and programming, leadership and mentoring, policy, and expansion. The goal is for organizations and leadership to incorporate recommendations with the goal of closing the gap in gender inequity.     

Pharm. D. pathways to biomedical research: the National Institutes of Health special conference on pharmacy research

To address the shortage of research-trained pharmaceutical scientists (or doctor of pharmacy [Pharm.D.] scientists), a 2-day pharmacy research conference titled "Pharm.D. Pathways to Biomedical Research" was convened on December 13-14, 2006, at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) campus (Bethesda, MD). The workshop included invited speakers and participants from academia, industry, and government. Forty-two pharmacy schools were represented, including deans and clinical pharmaceutical scientists with current NIH funding. In addition, several pharmacy professional organizations were represented--American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy, American College of Clinical Pharmacy, American Society of Health-System Pharmacists, and the Accreditation Council on Pharmaceutical Education. The workshop was divided into three sessions followed by breakout discussion groups: the first session focused on presentations by leading pharmaceutical scientists who described their path to success; the second session examined the NIH grant system, particularly as it relates to training opportunities in biomedical research and funding mechanisms; and the third session addressed biomedical research education and training from the perspective of scientific societies and academia. We summarize the discussions and findings from the workshop and highlight some important considerations for the future of research in the pharmacy community. This report also puts forth recommendations for educating future pharmaceutical scientists.     

Practice Functions Necessary for the Delivery of Pharmaceutical Care

Pharmaceutical care is a concept outlining the responsibilities of individual pharmacists to individual patients. Although widely accepted on a philosophical basis, there is a lack of comprehensive information about the functions and responsibilities pharmacists undertake when providing pharmaceutical care. Pharmacy educators and practitioners at the faculty of pharmacy, University of Toronto, developed and informally tested a process that details the practice functions required of pharmacists when providing pharmaceutical care as originally defined.     

ACCP Clinical Pharmacist Competencies

The purpose of the American College of Clinical Pharmacy (ACCP) is to advance human health by extending the frontiers of clinical pharmacy. Consistent with this mission and its core values, ACCP is committed to ensuring that clinical pharmacists possess the knowledge, skills, attitudes, and behaviors necessary to deliver comprehensive medication management (CMM) in team‐based, direct patient care environments. These components form the basis for the core competencies of a clinical pharmacist and reflect the competencies of other direct patient care providers. This paper is an update to a previous ACCP document and includes the expectation that clinical pharmacists be competent in six essential domains: direct patient care, pharmacotherapy knowledge, systems‐based care and population health, communication, professionalism, and continuing professional development. Although these domains align with the competencies of physician providers, they are specifically designed to better reflect the clinical pharmacy expertise required to provide CMM in patient‐centered, team‐based settings. Clinical pharmacists must be prepared to complete the education and training needed to achieve these competencies and must commit to ongoing efforts to maintain competence through ongoing professional development. Collaboration among stakeholders will be needed to ensure that these competencies guide clinical pharmacists’ professional development and evaluation by educational institutions, postgraduate training programs, professional societies, and employers.     

Pharmacy,pharmacists and society--pharmaceutical science and practice with philosophy

In Japanese pharmaceutical community, there seems to be a lack of "Science of Science" and "Research on Research" which are to utilize unit sciences and research for the benefit of human being. In other words, pharmaceutical people in Japan should have much more pharmaceutical philosophy. The late Professor Komei Miyaki, founder Editor-in-Chief of FARUMASHIA, the monthly membership magazine of Pharmaceutical Society of Japan, under whom I worked as one of editorial board members, taught me that scientists should have their own philosophy of their sciences. Such a pharmaceutical philosophy as mentioned above should be established on the basis of complete separation of medical profession between doctors and pharmacists, which form the most important and necessary issue in safety assurance for patients with the complete zero defect (ZD action), as there is a long history for that in Europe since the separation was completed by King Friedrich II in 1240. Therefore, we have to learn the social status of European/American pharmacist practitioners who are the great No. 1 among all the professions. European pharmacists guarantee the safety of every chemical used for human body and pets, such as medicines, cosmetics, foods, tooth stuffs and so on. Regarding the pharmaceutical sciences in Japan also there seems to be a lack of pharmaceutical philosophy, as pharmaceutical scientists have no identity in research object that may be similar to basic scientists who are non-pharmacy graduates. Japanese sciences generally have developed along the lines of the Western model, reaching the current high level. We now not only should receive profits from the outside but also should embark on a mission to support pharmaceutical sciences throughout the world, especially Asian courtiers. At the present, we do not seem to be fulfilling our mission to do that, even though general activity includes significant international exchange. We have to make much more effort for international contribution/participation. For that, the most important and necessary issue is to make change in fundamental sense in Japanese pharmaceutical community, though an internationalization of technological issues is usually taken into consideration. In this connection, regarding the new drug development, we must have a change in the sense to establish pharmaceutical philosophy and jump up in conception from the existing one. Based on the above mentioned pharmaceutical philosophy, seven star pharmacists should be educated as described in 2000 FIP Statement of Policy: Good Pharmacy Education Practice, who could be a (1) care giver; (2) decision maker; (3) communicator; (4) leader; (5) manager; (6) life-long learner; (7) teacher.     

从2014年ACCP年会看美国临床药学新服务模式

目的:介绍2014年美国临床药学学会(ACCP)年会内容和美国临床药学新的服务模式。方法:以大会报告、分会场交流为线索进行总结。结果:会议主题:"建立以病人为中心的医疗之家服务模式",通过医疗、护理、药学人员的多方协作,提高患者的生活质量,为医疗保险系统节省经费将成为美国临床药学新服务模式。结论:我国临床药师必须加强医学知识和药学知识学习,从而增强职业竞争力。     

The Role of Academic Pharmacy in Tobacco Cessation and Control

Despite decades of public health initiatives, tobacco use remains the leading known preventable cause of death in the United States. Clinicians have a proven, positive effect on patients’ ability to quit, and pharmacists are strategically positioned to assist patients with quitting. The American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy recognizes health promotion and disease prevention as a key educational outcome; as such, tobacco cessation education should be a required component of pharmacy curricula to ensure that all pharmacy graduates possess the requisite evidence-based knowledge and skills to intervene with patients who use tobacco. Faculty members teaching tobacco cessation-related content must be knowledgeable and proficient in providing comprehensive cessation counseling, and all preceptors and practicing pharmacists providing direct patient care should screen for tobacco use and provide at least minimal counseling as a routine component of care. Pharmacy organizations should establish policies and resolutions addressing the profession’s role in tobacco cessation and control, and the profession should work together to eliminate tobacco sales in all practice settings where pharmacy services are rendered.     

Curriculum recommendations of the AACP-PSSC task force on caring for the underserved

A task force was convened by the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy (AACP) and the Pharmaceutical Services Support Center (PSSC) and charged with the development of a curriculum framework to guide pharmacy programs in educating students on caring for the underserved. Utilizing a literature-based model, the task force constructed a framework that delineated evidence-based practice, clinical prevention and health promotion, health systems and policy, and community aspects of practice. Specific learning outcomes tailored to underserved populations were crafted and linked to resources readily available to the academy.     

Assessment and Recommendations of Compounding Education in AACP Member Institutions

In August 2009, the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy (AACP) Council of Sections established a Task Force to assess the current status of compounding education at its member institutions and to provide recommendations for future direction. The Task Force conducted a survey in late June 2010 of faculty members enrolled in the AACP Pharmaceutics and Pharmacy Practice sections to gain qualitative information of the current state of compounding education. The survey results were then organized around eight curricular topics for which the Task Force members provided interpretations and recommendations. A final report was sent to the AACP Council of Sections on February 15, 2011. This publication provides the information contained in that final report to the professional community.