Insights from a survey on professional identity formation activities in pharmacy skills laboratory courses

Professional identity formation (PIF) is the process of internalizing a profession's values, norms, and standards to "think, act, and feel" like a member of that community, making it essential to incorporate into learners' development. The purpose of this article is to characterize how and to what extent PIF-related activities are currently integrated into pharmacy skills laboratory courses.

An electronic survey was sent to pharmacy faculty who teach in skills laboratory courses about how PIF is described to students and its differentiation from professionalism, how it is integrated into the pharmacy curriculum, the type of pharmacy skills laboratory activities currently in the curriculum related to PIF, and how PIF is assessed in skills laboratory courses.

Survey respondents from all eight National Association of Boards of Pharmacy Districts provided with 34 individual responses representing 25 unique schools. Most respondents reported incorporating PIF into their curriculum, most commonly in experiential education (23.9 %), skills laboratory courses (21.1 %), and co-curricular activities (23.9 %). In skills laboratory courses, PIF development was included in lectures, individual activities, team-based activities, reflections, and small-group discussions. Descriptions provided by respondents mentioned prescription product preparation, patient counseling, patient cases, role-playing activities, reflections, cases with clinical uncertainty or ambiguity, interprofessional activities, and professionalism.

The incorporation of PIF-related activities into skills laboratory courses is not widespread. There is room for improving faculty understanding of PIF and differentiation from professionalism.