Effect of an Educational Video Miniseries on Interprofessional Preceptor Development.

OBJECTIVE: Experiential rotation preceptors may lack confidence in instructing interprofessional learners. This study examined the effect of a 12-episode, professionally produced video miniseries on attitudinal, satisfaction, and confidence outcomes in a cohort of interprofessional preceptors comprising pharmacy, medicine, nursing, and other allied health professionals. METHODS: An invitation to view the miniseries was distributed to all health science preceptors within 1 large, public health science university. Participants were asked survey questions addressing their attitudes toward the miniseries, their comfort in precepting, and their satisfaction with the miniseries. RESULTS: A total of 61 interprofessional preceptors enrolled in the study, with 33 completing the entire miniseries. Participants displayed highly positive attitudes toward the miniseries. In addition, members of all professions enrolled demonstrated an increase in precepting confidence after viewing the miniseries episodes (2.31 vs 2.7 on a 3-point Likert scale). Subgroup analyses demonstrated that preceptors with>10 years of professional experience displayed less positive attitudes toward the miniseries than those with 2-10 years of professional experience. CONCLUSION: The miniseries model proved effective as a preceptor development strategy for a group of health professional preceptors. Given the diversity of learners, a collection of training options that allows preceptor self-selection of programming may be beneficial.

Student Pharmacists' Perceptions of Male Faculty Teaching Female-Specific Sex and Gender Health Topics.

Objective. The primary objective of this study was to assess perceptions of second year pharmacy students regarding predominantly male faculty instructing them regarding female physiology, pathophysiology, and gender health topics.Methods. A cross-sectional survey was administered to second year pharmacy students at a small, private, non-profit college of pharmacy at the conclusion of their women's health integrated pharmacotherapeutics course. Students were asked to rate their level of agreement with various statements using a five-point Likert scale on which 1=strongly disagree and 5=strongly agree.Results. Forty-seven students completed the survey (26 female and 21 male). The students indicated high agreement with statement: "Prior to the lectures, I felt comfortable having male faculty teach the majority of women's health topics" (median=5, IQR=4-5). Students also indicated neutrality towards the statement: "The gender of the instructor is of importance in the didactic instruction of women's health topics" (median=3, IQR=1-3). No significant differences were observed regarding student gender.Conclusion. Pharmacy students were generally amenable to male faculty teaching female-specific sex and gender health topics. This pattern was observed in both male and female students.

Gagné's 9 Events of Instruction With Active Learning: Teaching Student Pharmacists How to Measure Blood Pressure.

As the scope of practice for pharmacists expands to include rendering physical assessment procedures, colleges and schools of pharmacy are increasingly incorporating various assessment skills into the curriculum. Pharmacy practice faculty are increasingly tasked with teaching and assessing learners on professional competency in entrustable professional activities and skills such as manual blood pressure measurement. Manual measurement using a sphygmomanometer and a stethoscope is considered the gold standard with regard to evaluating blood pressure. As pharmacy faculty begin to develop courses on physical assessment, a step-by-step, evidence-based andragogic/pedagogic method for designing, planning, instructing, and assessing learner proficiency is essential. The principles and techniques of active learning are frequently discussed and increasingly incorporated into the curricular and teaching philosophies of colleges and schools of pharmacy. However, the practical application of andragogic/pedagogic principles toward lesson planning and curation of active learning is infrequently discussed. In this article, we aim to illustrate a deliberate approach to designing and operationalizing active learning for auscultatory manual blood pressure measurement within the framework of Gagné's 9 events of instruction. For each design and instruction step, we propose user-friendly, high-impact operational practices derived empirically from education science, experience, and observations. Schematically, the approach described is intended to also facilitate instructor metacognition and knowledge building of applied andragogy/pedagogy through pre hoc, ad hoc, and post hoc reflection. Pragmatically, the approach accommodates active learning lesson planning, promotes transparency of teaching and learning, and is generalizable and applicable toward the instruction of various physical assessment procedures within the health professions.

Linezolid-Associated Hypoglycemia.

Our case describes a 77-year-old, African American male who was experiencing recurrent hypoglycemic episodes, which resulted in two emergency department (ED) visits and a subsequent inpatient admission during his second ED visit. He was prescribed linezolid 600 mg twice daily for 14 days for the treatment of a Staphylococcus hominis urinary tract infection. Nine and a half days into therapy, the patient began having recurrent hypoglycemic episodes. These episodes persisted despite repeated intravenous dextrose boluses. The patient's linezolid was discontinued during the second day of his inpatient admission. After a brief lag period after the final linezolid administration, the patient's blood glucose level stabilized within normal limits. He was later discharged home. The Naranjo scale scores the causality of this reaction between 4 and 8, indicating possible to probable causality. The patient had a follow-up appointment with his primary care physician 2 weeks after discharge, with no noted blood glucose complications. Two months after discharge, he entered hospice care for his advancing heart failure and later expired due to causes unrelated to blood glucose complications.