Introducing student Pharmacists to professional practice - the value of the out-of-hours visit

A substantial number of students embark on a degree in pharmacy without insight into the role of a pharmacist. A novel out-of-trading-hours community pharmacy experience was reported in May 2008 (1). The aim of this study was to further develop this model, allowing students to place their studies in context and gain an insight into the role of the community pharmacist in Ireland. The student cohort was divided for two out-of-hours visits to a community pharmacy. Subdivision into small groups to allowed for personal interaction with the pharmacist in each of 4 work environments; dispensing prescriptions, pharmacist-supervised medicines, designated consultation area and a general area for discussion of professional issues. The content was mapped to the curriculum for the students to extrapolate curriculum structure to future practice. The pharmacists were briefed on the learning objectives and how the content mapped to the RCSI curriculum.A response rate of 55% (n = 31) was achieved for the on-line questionnaire conducted to evaluate the exercise. 100% of students who responded found the evening enjoyable and 100% found it useful. 94% agreed that they had learned something new about the role of the community pharmacist, even though 58% had previous work experience. This suggests that a structured placement has benefits regardless of whether the student has previous work experience. Content analysis of the comments gave insight into the value of the visit in meeting the learning objectives.The structured out-of-hours placement for 1st year student pharmacists is a valuable tool to gain an insight into the challenging and expanding role of the pharmacist and allow the students to relate their curriculum to community practice.ReferenceSmith, I. & Hall, J. (2008). Introduction to community pharmacy: the University of Manchester experience. The Pharmaceutical Journal, 17th May, 280, 597-598. INNOVATION IN INTEGRATING RESEARCH, TEACHING AND LEARNING