Engaging faculty advisors to promote students' personal and professional development

With the increasing emphasis on personal and professional development in pharmacy curricula, programs often need to enhance or modify existing resources to meet standards. A major initiative of developing a consistent and standardized student advising process involving both clinical and non-clinical faculty as advisors to promote development of pharmacy students was an avenue taken at our institution.

Faculty were identified as ideal individuals to assist in mentoring and assessing students' personal and professional development given the long-term relationships they develop with students throughout both the didactic and experiential curriculum. Development and implementation of a longitudinal faculty advising program incorporating elements of student self-assessment, reflection, and faculty-based objective assessment is described.

We found both students and faculty benefited from this advising program in different ways, with students feeling more supported and faculty feeling more engaged and informed about the pharmacy curricula and student career-pathways.

A faculty advising program, as described in this article, can be utilized for both student success and faculty development in the pharmacy education setting.