Pharmacy Education; Competency and beyond

Dear Colleagues,

Pharmacy is part of a global movement in the education of health professionals that is increasingly determined, not only by the rapid growth in biomedical science knowledge, but also by the imperative to address the health needs of the communities that they serve. Furthermore, pharmacy, like other regulated professions, must demonstrate that formative education ensures competence to practice and that this is maintained via Continuous Professional Development. This has led to the development of competency frameworks that define the scope of practice, provide a scaffold for curriculum development, create a need for validated student assessment methods, establish requirements for experiential learning and engender accreditation criteria for the evaluation and quality assurance of professional degrees. Apart from the pharmacy-specific behaviours that are being pursued, the requirements for interprofessional, collaborative, patient-centred practice and for place both additional burdens. All of this however, begs some questions: Should competency be the only assessed outcome of pharmacy education for student pharmacists and for practitioners? Are there other aspects of learning and of professional practice that should be evaluated? Should the focus of assessment be the individual, the team, patient reported outcomes or the programme? Can academic and scholarly skills and standards continue to be met in professional programmes? Are those who are teaching, competent? How can supervision, assessmenta and feedback be provided effectively and efficiently in experiential palcements? By focusing on practice-related competencies are other aspects of personal and professional traits that are part of a caring professional being neglected?

Discuss these and other aspects of pharmacy education, both at undergraduate and at postgraduate/post-registration level, and propose what needs to be done. Help to set the agenda for research, debate and implementation in pharmacy education for the next decade.

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Martin C Henman
Guest Editor

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