Educational Goals Extracted from Homepages of Pharmacy Schools in Korea

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: The current educational goals and missions of pharmacy schools in Korea were analyzed to examine the current orientation and future direction of pharmaceutical education. METHODS: Educational mission statements were obtained from the homepages of 35 pharmacy schools and subjected to convert into codes. Themes and categories were induced using qualitative content-analysis from the codes and compared according to location of school (capital area versus province), public versus private, and date of initial enrollment (before versus in 2011). The themes and categories were compared with “the eight-star pharmacist” suggested by World Health Organization (WHO) and International Pharmaceutical Federation (FIP). RESULTS: Twelve themes, 44 categories, and 496 codes were identified. Themes included pharmaceutical expertise, professionalism, contribution to society, basic educational ideology, sphere of activity, leadership, research, dealing with future change, problem-solving ability, self-management and development, cooperation, and respect for life. Mission statements of schools that initially enrolled in 2011 cited humankind level contribution (p=0.011), patient-centered care (p=0.026), and globalization (p=0.018) more frequently than those enrolled before 2011. Most schools mentioned about care-giver, researcher, and decision-maker which were stated in “the eight-star pharmacist”. CONCLUSION: To meet the growing social requirements of a pharmacist's roles, wide-ranging active discussion on establishing educational goals should be made.