Adapting a National Framework to Inform Curricular Redesign Focused on Enhancing Student Clinical Competency.

Area of Science:

• Pharmacy Education
• Curriculum Development
• Pharmacotherapy

Background:

• Doctor of Pharmacy (PharmD) programs face continuous curricular redesign to ensure graduate practice readiness.
• Increasing demands on clinical competency and limited curricular time necessitate intentional prioritization of contemporary pharmacist practices.

Purpose of the Study:

• To describe an adaptable framework for prioritizing pharmacotherapy topics within pre-Advanced Pharmacy Practice Experiences (APPEs) curricula.
• To emphasize the pharmacist's role in specific topic areas during curricular redesign and facilitate discussions on time allocation.

Main Methods:

• Adapted a national pharmacotherapy curriculum framework.
• Developed customized Tier descriptions based on factors relevant to student pharmacists during APPEs (e.g., pharmacist autonomy, licensing exam emphasis, topic encounter frequency, condition-specific information).
• Reprioritized topics considering regional practice variations and ideologies.

Main Results:

• A customized framework was developed to guide program-specific topic prioritization in pre-APPE curricula.
• The framework facilitates focused discussions on critical foundational concepts while ensuring lower-priority topics are not entirely disregarded.

Conclusions:

• Customizing national frameworks enables pharmacy programs to strategically prioritize pharmacotherapy topics.
• This approach supports faculty and students in maintaining focus on essential concepts for practice readiness and curricular reform.