Fostering Advocacy in Student Pharmacists: Strategies for Curricular Integration and Assessment

This study aimed to discuss teaching and assessment of advocacy skills in student pharmacists as called for in the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy 2022 Curriculum Outcomes and Entrustable Professional Activities.

The American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy 2022 Curriculum Outcomes and Entrustable Professional Activities categorize advocacy as a skill that should be developed to advance patient care and the profession. This is a change from the 2013 Center for Advancement of Pharmacy Education outcomes, in which the focus was on advocating for patients. Several thought papers have been released calling for an increase in advocacy training, but there has been limited published work on how advocacy is taught and assessed. In this review of published literature, examples of how pharmacy programs have incorporated and assessed advocacy are provided. Historically, teaching advocacy and its principles has been placed in the core curriculum content, elective courses, and/or cocurriculum, with limited assessment of skills related to advocacy. To support the greater focus on developing advocacy skills within the profession and among patient populations, it is recommended to incorporate the teaching of advocacy-related models of change into education curricula. Examples of 3 existing models are detailed.

Advocacy is a core skill set for advancing patient care and shaping the direction of the profession. There are currently limited external validation tools to test if students understand what advocacy is and how to perform advocacy. Further development of teaching and evaluation tools should be explored to help provide a common foundation of this skill set in all student pharmacists.