Pharmacy school survey standards revisited.

In a series of 3 papers on survey practices published from 2008 to 2009, the editors of the American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education presented guidelines for reporting survey research, and these criteria are reflected in the Author Instructions provided on the Journal's Web site. This paper discusses the relevance of these criteria for publication of survey research regarding pharmacy colleges and schools. In addition, observations are offered about surveying of small "universes" like that comprised of US colleges and schools of pharmacy. The reason for revisiting this issue is the authors' concern that, despite the best of intentions, overly constraining publication standards might discourage research on US colleges and schools of pharmacy at a time when the interest in the growth of colleges and schools, curricular content, clinical education, competence at graduation, and other areas is historically high. In the best traditions of academia, the authors share these observations with the community of pharmacy educators in the hope that the publication standards for survey research about US pharmacy schools will encourage investigators to collect and disseminate valuable information.

Interprofessional education: cooperation among osteopathic medicine, pharmacy, and physician assistant students to recognize medical errors.

Thirty-nine volunteer students from 3 health science colleges at Touro University California participated in an exercise designed to promote interprofessional collaboration. In the event, thirteen 3-person multidisciplinary teams of students identified potential medical errors in a series of case-based scenarios. In an immediate postevent survey, 33 of 39 respondents (85%) indicated that the exercise marked the first time that they had worked on clinical problems with students from other health professions. All respondents agreed that interprofessional education was useful and necessary. A 6-month follow-up survey had 24 respondents, 9 of whom (38%) indicated that the experience helped them in interprofessional communications in their clinical rotations. Twenty-two respondents (92%) recalled that all team members were involved in the selection of answers. Respondents reported that team answer selections were made by consensus (12 [50%]), by accepting the opinion of an "expert" on the team (9 [38%]), or by majority vote (3 [13%]). Since this exercise, there has been a surge of interprofessional activities at Touro University California, including steps toward the implementation of campus-wide interprofessional education.

Progress examination for assessing students' readiness for advanced pharmacy practice experiences.

OBJECTIVES: To create a valid assessment tool to evaluate the readiness of pharmacy students for advanced pharmacy practice experiences (APPEs). DESIGN: The Triple Jump Examination (TJE) was tailored to the 4-year, 2-plus-2 curriculum of the College. It consisted of (1) a written, case-based, closed-book examination, (2) a written, case-based open-book examination, and (3) an objective structured clinical examination (OSCE). The TJE was administered at the end of each 4 academic semesters. Progression of students to APPEs was dependent on achieving a preset minimum cumulative (weighted average) score in the 4 consecutive TJE examinations. ASSESSMENT: The predictive utility of the examination was demonstrated by a strong correlation between the cumulative TJE scores and the preceptor grades in the first year (P3) of APPEs (r = 0.60, p > 0.0001). Reliability of the TJE was shown by strong correlations among the 4 successive TJE examinations. A survey probing the usefulness of TJE indicated acceptance by both students and faculty members. CONCLUSION: The TJE program is an effective tool for the assessment of pharmacy students' readiness for the experiential years. In addition, the TJE provides guidance for students to achieve preparedness for APPE.