Teaching advanced pharmacy practice experience students to be effective teachers of second-year pharmacotherapy students

Abstract

IntroductionAcademic advanced pharmacy practice experiences (APPEs) are unique elective opportunities for student pharmacists to engage with and learn about academia. The purpose of this research was to determine the impact of second-year (PY2) student participation in fourth-year (PY4) academic APPE student-delivered review sessions on individual pharmacotherapy examination scores. MethodsThe PY2 cohort was evaluated by comparing their performance against the class average when they did and did not attend a review session. Utilizing a t-test, we sought to determine if there was a significant change in student performance. Qualitative evaluations were also performed on the PY4 students experience during their rotation. ResultsA total of 28 PY2 student pharmacists took a total of 140 exams during the study period. Of the 140 exams taken, 54 individual exams were taken after attending a review session created and led by PY4 student pharmacists and 86 exams were taken in the absence of attending a review session. Analysis showed that student performance on exams after attending a review session was 0.4 SD above the class average, while performance was very close to the class average at 0.05 SD above the class average when review sessions were not attended. ConclusionsPY4 student pharmacists trained on an academic APPE can improve PY2 student pharmacists' pharmacotherapy exam scores. APPE students also self-reported positive learning experiences while participating in this teaching.