Pharmacists need to move towards a planned approach
to learning
Pharmacists need to move towards a more planned approach
to learning without ignoring incidental learning, according to Claire
Grout, Greater Manchester Workforce Development Confederation. While planning
professional development, pharmacists also need to think about their preferred
learning style and identify what they do not know.
Mrs Grout said that continuing professional development
(CPD) is not the same as continuing education. It involves all the learning
activities, including research, that help to improve practice. CPD is
not about counting the number of hours spent at courses. Mrs Grout suggested
finding a mentor with whom to exchange ideas and said that documentation
is essential. She also said that pharmacists needed to demonstrate what
CPD they had undertaken in order to prove the quality of their practice.
If we want to survive in our health care system,
we need evidence to support our practice, said Ian Wong, University of
Bradford. He added that pharmaceutical care in community pharmacy is not
easy to research as it was not easy to define the active components of
interventions.
In order to research pharmaceutical care, pharmacists
need to do appropriate literature searches and find out what others are
doing. “I believe pharmaceutical care can offer a better way to help patients,”
Dr Wong said.
Professor Clare Mackie, Robert Gordon University,
Aberdeen, said that in terms of implementing pharmaceutical care into
the undergraduate curriculum, the European Association of Faculties of
Pharmacy proposed three phases: introducing pharmaceutical care into the
undergraduate programme in year one or two, delivering a pharmaceutical
care module in year three with a recommendation of 50 hours contact teaching
time, and the third phase, its integration into other curriculum activities
in year four. She said that it is important that students understand the
philosophy of pharmaceutical care, as by then it will not matter in what
environment they work in, they will be able to adapt.
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