Effectiveness of a pharmacy teaching certificate program offered to practicing pharmacists

Area of Science:

• Pharmacy Education
• Academic Pharmacy
• Professional Development

Background:

• Pharmacists increasingly engage in educational roles beyond patient care.
• These roles include educating patients, healthcare providers, and student pharmacists.
• Clinical pharmacists may deliver continuing education, train colleagues, and precept students/residents.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate a university-affiliated pharmacy teaching certificate program.
• To assess the program's impact on participant knowledge.
• To measure changes in perceived confidence in academic pharmacy and preceptor development.

Main Methods:

• A 10-month program with four modules offering continuing education (CE) credit.
• Utilized didactic and active learning strategies with reinforcement assignments.
• Measured knowledge via pre/post-module assessments and confidence via pre/post-program surveys.
• Employed paired t-tests for data analysis.

Main Results:

• Significant increases in knowledge were observed after each of the four modules.
• Participants reported significantly higher confidence levels across all module topics.
• Data from 32 participants across two cohorts demonstrated program effectiveness.

Conclusions:

• The pharmacy teaching certificate program effectively enhanced participant knowledge.
• The program also improved participants' perceived confidence in teaching and preceptor roles.
• University-affiliated programs can successfully bolster academic pharmacy skills.