A continuous professional development process for first-year pharmacy students. Academic Article uri icon

abstract

  • OBJECTIVES: To develop, pilot test, and evaluate a continuous professional development (CPD) process for first-year pharmacy (P1) students. DESIGN: Students and faculty members were introduced to the important elements of the CPD process via a live training program. Students completed the year-long 4-step CPD cycle by identifying a learning objective, creating a plan, completing the learning activity, evaluating their learning outcome, documenting each step, and meeting with their faculty advisor for feedback and advice. ASSESSMENT: Seventy-five first-year students (100%) successfully completed the CPD process during the 2009-2010 academic year. The students spent an average of 7 hours (range 2 to 20 hours) on the CPD process. The majority of faculty members (83%) completing the survey instrument found the process valuable for the students and would like to see the program continued. CONCLUSION: Integrating a CPD requirement for students in a college or school of pharmacy is feasible and valuable to students' developing life-long learning skills. Effective and frequent training of faculty members and students is a key element in the CPD process.

published proceedings

  • Am J Pharm Educ

author list (cited authors)

  • O'Brocta, R., Abu-Baker, A., Budukh, P., Gandhi, M., Lavigne, J., & Birnie, C.

citation count

  • 11

complete list of authors

  • O'Brocta, Richard||Abu-Baker, Asim||Budukh, Parag||Gandhi, Mona||Lavigne, Jill||Birnie, Christine

publication date

  • March 2012