Abstract
Doctor of Pharmacy (PharmD) programs continually engage in curricular redesign to ensure practice readiness of graduates. With ever-increasing demands on clinical competency and curricular time, it is important to be intentional when determining curricular priorities and prioritize contemporary pharmacist practice. This paper describes how to adapt a national framework for pharmacotherapy curricula to emphasize the pharmacist’s role within a given topic area in order to facilitate conversations about allotting curricular time during a curricular redesign. Customized Tier descriptions based on various factors expected of student pharmacists during Advanced Pharmacy Practice Experiences (APPEs) were developed (e.g., relative autonomy of the pharmacist in managing the topic, emphasis on licensing exams, frequency with which students can expect to encounter the topic at school-specific experiential placements, and condition-specific information). Topics were also reprioritized to address regional variations in practice and ideologies. Customizing a national framework to determine program-specific considerations for prioritizing topics within the pre-APPE curriculum can help faculty and students alike maintain focus on highly critical and foundational concepts, while also making sure not to completely disregard topics of lower priority. We have proposed such a framework for programs to utilize when facilitating conversations surrounding curricular reforms and topic prioritization.
Highlights
A multitude of Doctor of Pharmacy (PharmD) programs across the United States are engaging in curricular redesigns as a result of several factors, including advancements in pharmaceutical research and development, increased reliance on medications for managing chronic conditions, continual evolution of pharmacy practice standards and scope of practice, and the corresponding implementation of new accreditation standards from the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education (ACPE) in 2016, among numerous other factors [1,2]
The American College of Clinical Pharmacy (ACCP) Pharmacotherapy Didactic Curriculum Toolkit was certainly helpful for framing the initial conversations during the process by serving as a national standard for what to prioritize and provided a framework to consider when prioritizing topics
44 unique comments on topic prioritization, an additional 59 unique comments related to topic categorization, and no comments or suggestions for the program-specific Tier descriptions
Summary
A multitude of Doctor of Pharmacy (PharmD) programs across the United States are engaging in curricular redesigns as a result of several factors, including advancements in pharmaceutical research and development, increased reliance on medications for managing chronic conditions, continual evolution of pharmacy practice standards and scope of practice, and the corresponding implementation of new accreditation standards from the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education (ACPE) in 2016, among numerous other factors [1,2]. A large emphasis of this initiative is a focus on “practice ready” graduates, with a corresponding emphasis on “APPE (Advanced Pharmacy Practice Experiences) ready” students, but a clear definition for either term has been difficult to articulate [2,3,4,5]. The typical PharmD curriculum entails an initial 2–3 years of didactic classroom instruction, pharmacist skills labs, and authentic practice experiences during Introductory Pharmacy
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