Completion Date: October 30, 2020
Description: P1 students in groups of 2-3 were required to conduct 3 mock digital communications activities. In the first breakout room, the students practiced leaving a medication recommendation over voicemail for a healthcare provider. In the second breakout room, the students wrote a fax to a provider with the same medication recommendation. In the last breakout room, the students conducted face-to-face, telephonic, and video counseling with mock patients. Upon completion of the different activities, the students returned to the main room for a debrief and discussion of these forms of digital communication.
Tuesday did an excellent job leading this lab. She was knowledgeable, personable, and articulate. It was obvious that she had prepared for the lab and led it with confidence. During discussion with the students, she invited participation and asked thought-provoking questions. When asked questions by the students, her advance preparation was especially obvious, as she was able to answer the questions easily and with good detail. While she had a few ums, overall her communication skills were stellar. It was a joy to work with her!
Self-reflection: This was one of my favorite small group facilitation opportunities during this program. I really enjoyed observing the students practice their digital communication skills and assisting with the debrief afterwards. During the discussion, I was able to relate my own experiences to the mock activities and provide additional strategies to improve patient outcomes. What surprised me the most is how much value I now see in these types of activities as a new practitioner. Effective communication is such an import aspect of being a competent pharmacist, and I wish that my pharmacy program would have offered a similar opportunity for practice in the curriculum.
Completion Date: November 16, 2020
Description: P2 students in groups of 3-4 enhanced their critical thinking skills and pharmacotherapy knowledge by evaluating current clinical literature, presenting their findings, and facilitating a discussion on applications to pharmacy practice.
Self-reflection: Despite my own experiences with presenting and facilitating journal clubs, I found it challenging to facilitate a journal club as a preceptor. One of my responsibilities as a facilitator was to ask follow-up questions during the discussion, however, I found it difficult to ask questions that weren't already addressed in the presentation. This may be a testament to how well the students prepared for their presentations, but I think this is an area of improvement for me as well. On the other hand, I felt that I was able to facilitate a productive discussion with each journal club group overall by providing additional context from a managed care lens. In the future, I hope to improve my questioning skills to encourage critical thinking in students.
Completion Dates: February 23, 2021 and April 29, 2021
Description: P3 students participated in two OSCEs (Objective Structured Clinical Examinations) to assess their clinical competency on various pharmacotherapy topics. The first OSCE required the student to interview a patient and perform a full SBIRT counseling session. The second OSCE required the student to verbally present an SBAR (situation, background, assessment, and recommendation) on a patient case to a healthcare provider.
Grading of Facilitated Sessions: Session #1 & Session #2
Self-reflection: My role as an OSCE facilitator was to assess and evaluate the student's counseling session and patient case presentation based on a rubric. While these activities did not necessarily foster my facilitation skills, they were important in further developing my constructive feedback skills. For example, whenever a student missed a point on the rubric, I made sure to provide concrete examples of why they did not receive full points. While the rubric was meant to provide an objective and standardized grading framework, I realized it could quickly become subjective. This was particular true for the verbal presentation section where I was arguing whether or not to take points off for the same theme (e.g., using non-patient friendly language or filler words) across multiple elements. At the end of the day, I decided it was important to address the concern but not deduct additional points for the same problem. Overall, this was a great exercise in providing constructive feedback through both an objective and subjective lens.