Professional Pharmacy Fraternities as a Mechanism for Cocurricular Learning: A Qualitative Analysis of Two...

Professional pharmacy fraternal organizations are among the most common student organizations in schools and colleges of pharmacy and are present on 98% of campuses. However, sparse literature explores the educational value these organizations offer. The purpose of this review is to explore the alignment of national requirements of 2 major pharmacy fraternities with cocurricular learning objectives.

All 4 fraternal pharmacy organizations recognized by the Professional Fraternal Association were invited to collaborate on this project. Ultimately, 2 fraternities participated by gathering national office requirements for reports and activities for collegiate chapters. Qualitative review of fraternity requirements was conducted via manifest content analysis by 2 independent reviewers, and items were coded to the relevant cocurricular domain(s) from the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education Standards 2016; disagreements were resolved by a third author.

A total of 50 fraternity requirements were identified and mapped to 1 or more cocurricular domains, for a total of 63 codings. All 6 cocurricular domains were coded at least once. The most common codings were professionalism and leadership. Significant overlap existed in requirements that encompassed professionalism plus cultural sensitivity, professionalism plus self-awareness, and self-awareness plus leadership. Some activities benefited the school or community, whereas others solely contributed to individual member professional development.

Professional pharmacy fraternities provide ample cocurricular learning opportunities among the breadth of affective domains. The mission and vision of these organizations foster affective domain skill development in school- and community-facing events, as well as dedicated individual professional development.