A Follow-Up Study on Delivery of Pharmacy Law Education Across Doctor of Pharmacy Programs.

OBJECTIVE: To present 2018-2019 data from an expanded investigation after an inaugural 2016 pilot survey, which previously reported on the delivery of pharmacy law education in doctor of pharmacy (PharmD) programs in the US. METHODS: Due to the limited scope of responses in the 2016 pilot study, the earlier survey was refined and readministered (Qualtrics, Provo, UT) utilizing branching logic to specifically identify characteristics of the pharmacy law content and its delivery in PharmD curricula. The follow-up study received an exempt status from the Institutional Review Board of Keck Graduate Institute. RESULTS: Of the 142 American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy member institutions in 2018, 97 provided complete responses to the survey, yielding a response rate of 68.3%. The survey results from this 2018-2019 further investigation examining the delivery of pharmacy law education in US PharmD programs indicate significant variations across respondent programs with respect to professional background of pharmacy law educators and assessment strategies used in pharmacy law courses, as well as variations in the structure and timing of the core pharmacy law course within the PharmD curriculum. CONCLUSION: The current data show PharmD curricula at surveyed institutions lack uniformity in pharmacy law content and sequencing of pharmacy law courses, supporting further investigation to identify the best practices in the delivery of pharmacy law education. Another deliberate focus should aim to more specifically determine how, if, and which specific modifications to delivery of pharmacy law education might ensure achievement of student learning outcomes and optimize PharmD graduates' performance on standardized jurisprudence exams.

Differences in learning styles, critical thinking skills, and peer evaluations between students with and without leadership engagement.

INTRODUCTION: Leadership has long been suggested as an attribute essential to the pharmacy profession. Academic pharmacy has identified and addressed the need for leadership development among student pharmacists. The objective of this study is to assess differences in learning styles, critical thinking skills, and peer-perceived leadership skill evaluations between those with vs. without student leadership engagement (SLE). METHODS: Four cohorts of pharmacy students were included in the analysis. Each student completed the Kolb Learning Style Inventory and Health Science Reasoning Test (HSRT) during pharmacy school orientation. Student-peer evaluation scores were derived from three courses and assessed important leadership skills such as communication, critical thinking, teamwork, and professionalism. Descriptive analysis was performed; group difference was tested using independent group t-tests on continuous variables and Fisher exact tests on categorical variables. RESULTS: This study included 205 pharmacy students from the Classes of 2018 to 2021; 63 students (31%) displayed SLE. No significant differences were found in the peer evaluation scores between students with and without SLE. Students with SLE showed significantly higher scores in domains of the HSRT and the overall HSRT score. CONCLUSIONS: The study results showed that HSRT assessment of critical thinking skills was significantly higher in students engaging in leadership, suggesting that HSRT should be explored as a possible predictor for SLE in future studies.

Team Communication on Tasks Performed in Blood Pressure Clinics in Community Pharmacies.

Background: To successfully deliver pharmacy services, pharmacists and technicians need to work as a team and have effective communication. Objectives: To measure the amount of communication between community pharmacists and their technicians during monthly blood pressure (BP) clinics. Methods: Cross-sectional survey method was used to assess the amount of communication pharmacists and technicians had on each task. Study participants were pharmacist-technician pairs (teams) from 10 intervention community pharmacies in the Team Education and Adherence Monitoring (TEAM) trial. Each team provided services designed to improve BP among hypertensive African American patients. Thirteen specific tasks were identified as essential in providing monthly BP clinics, and they were being performed by either the pharmacist or technician. At the end of the trial, each pharmacist and technician were asked to report his/her perception of discussion levels that occurred for each task. The level of team communication was summarized for each task (task-specific) and for each team (team-specific). Results: For task-specific communication, 3 teams had communication regarding pharmacist tasks and 5 teams engaged in communication for technician tasks. More communication was reported for newly developed technician tasks in the BP clinic. For team-specific communication, 2 teams reported no communication on any task, and another 2 teams reported having communication on all the tasks. Overall, pharmacy teams showed different levels of communication in this study. Conclusion: The amounts of communication between pharmacists and technicians were found to vary for different tasks and teams. This suggests that the nature of tasks and the unique dynamics existing in each pharmacy team could influence pharmacist-technician communication.

Implementation and lessons learned from a mock trial as a teaching-learning and assessment activity.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: To describe implementation and lessons learned from use of a mock trial as a teaching-learning and assessment activity in a required evidence-based practice course. This innovative self-directed learning strategy reinforced evidence-based skills and affective domain competencies in Center for the Advancement of Pharmaceutical Education (CAPE) 2013 Outcomes and Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education (ACPE) Standards 2016. EDUCATIONAL ACTIVITY AND SETTING: During spring semesters 2015 and 2016, first professional year (P1) cohorts were divided into teams and assigned controversial topics to research and debate in mock trials. The activity provided opportunities for teaching-learning and assessment. Statistical analysis included inter-rater reliability (IRR), comparison of faculty-judge and student-juror evaluation of trial performance. FINDINGS: Two cohorts were divided into eight teams (four per cohort) to debate four issues. Students within each team were assigned individual scores. Mean individual scores are reported by trial/topic. Faculty-judges and student-jurors rated eight criteria including content/knowledge, critical thinking, application/discussion of federal/state law, citations/references, visual aids, delivery/style, and active listening. Analysis indicated students met competency expectations with overall judges' and jurors' mean scores above 54/60 points (90%) in 2015 and above 51/60 points (85%) in 2016. Judges' scores showed a wider distribution than jurors' scores. Peer evaluation mean scores were above 55/60 points in all four trials. Intra-class correlation was calculated. Judges' scores had excellent IRR in two trials, and good IRR in a third trial, whereas jurors had good IRR in one trial. SUMMARY: Evaluation scores demonstrated students successfully applied knowledge and skills from this and prior P1 courses, and met competency expectations for the mock trial.

Nanocrystal shape and nanojunction effects on electron transport in nanocrystal-assembled bulks.

Bulk nanostructured materials are made from the assembly of octahedral PbSe nanocrystals. After thermal annealing, the artificial bulk demonstrates a large difference in behavior depending on the temperature, and a large variation of room-temperature resistivity of up to seven orders of magnitude. This variation originates from the high-indexed sharp edges of the octahedral nanocrystals. As the nanocrystals are arranged in the edge-to-edge configuration, which was observed in scanning electron microscopy images, the inter-nanocrystal capacitance is small due to the small parallel area between the nanocrystals. The small capacitance results in a high thermal fluctuation voltage and drives electron transport. The temperature-dependent resistivity and the electric field-dependent current are highly in agreement with the model of fluctuation-induced tunneling conduction. Thermal annealing reduces the inter-nanocrystal separation distance, creating a large variation in the electrical properties. Specifically, octahedral-shaped PbSe nanocrystals are employed in tailoring the electron transport in bulk nanostructured materials.