Professional Activities Research Articles

Personal and professional development activity tracking in a pharmacy curriculum

Background and purposePersonal and professional development (PPD) is an essential focus of pharmacy school curriculum in developing future pharmacists. This manuscript describes the creation, implementation, and data collection of a PPD Activity Tracker in a pharmacy curriculum. Educational activity and settingPreviously, in “Standards 2016” and currently in “Standards 2025”, colleges of pharmacy are tasked with documenting how students achieve PPD throughout their academic careers. Therefore, the PPD course directors developed a PPD Activities Tracker to provide student pharmacists a central location to document curriculum and co-curricular activities as they matriculate through the pharmacy program. The tracker was created using an electronic survey platform. Eleven activity categories were established, and students noted whether the activity was directed toward personal and/or professional development. The purpose of the tracker was to create a repository for student documentation of their PPD-promoting experiences and to provide a mechanism for individual and cohort reporting for assessment and accreditation. FindingsStudent pharmacists from two class cohorts entered 3254 PPD activities into the tracker over a two-year period. All PPD categories were tracked with the highest attended activities, including personal development & self-care (19%) and self-reflection (19%); the next highest category was interprofessional education/collaboration (15%). Students noted that most PPD activities enhanced their personal and professional development (49%), while personal development only and professional development only were 31% and 19%, respectively. The students “highly recommended” (72%) most tracked PPD activities, while 26% of activities were “recommended.” Individual student and class cohort data were also readily accessible. SummaryThe PPD tracker created a central, easily accessible, and organized storehouse for successfully collecting curricular and co-curricular PPD activities throughout the student pharmacist's career. The data from this tracker could easily be collected and sorted individually as a class cohort or for an individual student pharmacist.

The bench to community initiative: community-based participatory research model for translating research discoveries into community solutions

Community-based participatory research (CBPR) is an effective methodology for translating research findings from academia to community interventions. The Bench to Community Initiative (BCI), a CBPR program, builds on prior research to engage stakeholders across multiple disciplines with the goal of disseminating interventions to reduce breast cancer disparities and improve quality of life of Black communities.MethodsThe BCI program was established to understand sociocultural determinants of personal care product use, evaluate the biological impact of endocrine disrupting chemicals, and develop community interventions. The three pillars of the program include research, outreach and engagement as well as advocacy activities. The research pillar of the BCI includes development of multidisciplinary partnerships to understand the sociocultural and biological determinants of harmful chemical (e.g., endocrine disrupting chemicals) exposures from personal care products and to implement community interventions. The outreach and engagement pillar includes education and translation of research into behavioral practice. The research conducted through the initiative provides the foundation for advocacy engagement with applicable community-based organizations. Essential to the mission of the BCI is the participation of community members and trainees from underrepresented backgrounds who are affected by breast cancer disparities.ResultsTwo behavioral interventions will be developed building on prior research on environmental exposures with the focus on personal care products including findings from the BCI. In person and virtual education activities include tabling at community events with do-it-yourself product demonstrations, Salon Conversations—a virtual platform used to bring awareness, education, and pilot behavior change interventions, biennial symposiums, and social media engagement. BCI’s community advisory board members support activities across the three pillars, while trainees participate in personal and professional activities that enhance their skills in research translation.DiscussionThis paper highlights the three pillars of the BCI, lessons learned, testimonies from community advisory board members and trainees on the impact of the initiative, as well as BCI’s mission driven approaches to achieving health equity.

Competency based medical education implementation at the institutional level: A cross-discipline comparative program evaluation

Introduction As an early adopter of competency-based medical education (CBME) our postgraduate institution was uniquely positioned to analyze implementation experience data across programs, while keeping institutional factors constant. We described participants’ experiences related to CBME implementation across programs derived from early program evaluation efforts within our setting. Methods This evaluation focused on eight residency programs at a medium-sized academic institution in Canada. Participants (n = 175) included program leaders, faculty, and residents. The study consisted of 3 phases: (1) describing intended implementation; (2) documenting enacted implementation; and (3) comparing intended with enacted implementation to inform adaptations. Each program’s findings were summarized in technical reports which were then analyzed thematically. Cross program data were organized by themes. Results Six themes were identified. All groups emphasized the need for ongoing refinement of CBME resulting from shared tensions such as increased assessment burden. However, there were some disparate CBME-related experiences between programs such as the experience with entrustable professional activities, the interpretation of retrospective entrustment anchors, and quality of feedback. Conclusion We detected several cross-program successes and important challenges related to CBME. Our experience can inform other programs engaging in implementation and evaluation of CBME.

Aligning dental curriculum to support an entrustable professional activities framework: Structure, instruction, assessment, and infrastructure.

Aligning dental curriculum to support an entrustable professional activities framework: Structure, instruction, assessment, and infrastructure.

Multi-faceted strategy that improves students’ achievement of Entrustable Professional Activities across Advanced Pharmacy Practice Experiences

ObjectiveTo outline an approach to help students achieve Entrustable Professional Activities (EPAs) entrustment during a sequence of Advanced Pharmacy Practice Experiences (APPEs) by implementing longitudinal monitoring and individualized intervention and remediation strategies. MethodsUsing the recommended EPAs within the core APPEs (Acute Care, Ambulatory Care, Community, Institutional), students were expected to achieve entrustment on all EPAs by graduation. A longitudinal monitoring approach, using an “EPA report card,” was implemented to continuously identify students at risk of not meeting the EPA requirement of “Level 3” entrustment (perform with reactive supervision). Individualized interventions, including Proactive Outreach and In-Sequence Remediation were incorporated into the APPE core and elective sequence to help ensure all students were entrusted by end of APPEs without requiring further end of year remediation to graduate. ResultsFor the graduating classes of 2023 and 2024, 12% (8/69) and 16% (12/75) students respectively were identified as at risk of not meeting EPA entrustment. Proactive Outreach, In-Sequence Remediation, or a combination of both strategies, were utilized to enhance learning and EPA performance. As a result, all students achieved “Level 3” entrustment on the deficient EPA(s) by the end of the APPE sequence. No student required further end of year remediation to graduate. ConclusionUtilizing a multi-faceted strategy provided timely, real world practice opportunities to improve students’ achievement of EPAs across the APPE curriculum and decreased the need for end of year remediation and potential graduation delays.

“Opportunities and responsibilities”: how do pharmacists assess their professionalism?

IntroductionProfessionalism is fundamental to the existence of professions. In pharmacy, interest in this theme improved with events that examined the resocialization of pharmacists in care. With this, evaluating professionalism can help the operationalization of the theme and, consequently, the development of strategies for pharmacy consolidation before its challenges. Therefore, this study aimed to evaluate the professionalism of Brazilian pharmacists.MethodsTo meet the objective, a cross-sectional study was conducted between March 2022 and August 2023. Data were collected using the Brazilian version of the “Modification of Hall’s Professionalism Scale for Use with Pharmacists”. The scale has 39 items grouped into the domains: autonomy, vocation, professional council, self-regulation, continuing education, and altruism. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and an ANOVA analysis of variance with post-hoc Hochberg or Games-Howell tests with Bootstrapping was conducted to verify differences between groups.Results600 pharmacists participated in this study. The majority (69%) was female and carried out their professional activities in community pharmacies (50%). Professionalism scores ranged between 14 and 29 points, with an average of 22.8 points. Pharmacists working in outpatient clinics had higher scores in most factors, namely, altruism, continuing education, professional council, vocation, and autonomy. This indicates that the inclination of pharmacists to occupy areas focused on care can be significant to assess professionalism.ConclusionsThe data obtained indicate that pharmacists working in outpatient clinics had higher professionalism scores compared to others. This corroborates the worldwide trend experienced by pharmacy in recent decades, which is the execution of increasingly patient-centered practice models.

Training of future policeman for the use of unmanned aerial vehicle in professional activities

Training of future policeman for the use of unmanned aerial vehicle in professional activities

Advancing Surgical Research for Immigrant Patients: A Call to Action.

Immigrants in the United States face unique challenges in accessing healthcare. There have been several studies highlighting some of the barriers that this population faces; however, there is still a lack of robust research on this patient population in the context of surgical access and outcomes. Immigration status is a protected variable that is not documented in patient charts for a myriad of reasons. This makes it incredibly difficult to identify this population in the first place, resulting in a decreased ability to study this group retrospectively and, therefore, restricting the quantity and quality of research into these vulnerable patients. This article aims to provide a call to action for medical professionals to develop ways to accurately document immigration status in medical records while simultaneously assuaging the concerns related to this documentation and its implications on patient care and confidentiality.

Water, Sanitation, Waste Management, and Professional Activities in Relation to Diseases with Neighboring Citizens of Congo Rivers in the Brazzaville Agglomeration (Republic of Congo)

Situated on the right bank of the Pool Malébo, in the Congo River basin, the city of Brazzaville is rich in potential water resources. These resources are polluted by human practices that deteriorate the quality of the soil and, consequently, the quality of the water. The aim of this study is therefore to inventory the activities carried out by the population around watercourses, to investigate waste management and to assess the impact on water and soil quality. The survey sample was selected on the basis of impacted zones located between 250 m and 750 m around watercourses. The aim of this study is therefore to inventory the activities carried out by the population around watercourses, to investigate waste management and to assess the impact on water and soil quality. The survey form was drawn up using Sphinx Plus2-Edition Lexica-V5 software. The survey data was entered into the same software, then transferred to Excel to generate the graphical. 880 people were surveyed, the most dominant age group was 25-48 years old, i.e. a rate of 66%. The most dominant gender was female, with a rate of 54%. The average age of the respondents was lower secondary school, and they were generally employed in the private sector. Commercial activities (restaurants/bars, pharmacies, grocery stores/ butchers, markets, etc.) are the most common economic activity, with a rate of around 70%; 59% of these activities are located close to or very close to the watercourse (750-1000 m). The activities that contribute to soil degradation, and consequently water degradation, in the city of Brazzaville are: 59% the dumping of household waste and/or wastewater on the ground and 32% uncontrolled urbanization. The study shows that soil and water pollution in Brazzaville is caused by poor management of household waste and uncontrolled urbanization.

Features of the dental status of specialists-operators of underwater technical means of marine equipment

BACKGROUND: Conduct a comparative analysis of the dental status of specialists-operators of underwater technical equipment and military personnel of the St. Petersburg garrison. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A retrospective study of the dental formula of 66 contract servicemen was conducted. The main group consisted of 37 operators of underwater technical equipment aged 32 to 56 years, with average age of 44,7 ± 5,7 years. The comparison group included 29 officers of the St. Petersburg garrison aged 39 to 52 years, with average age of 46,3 ± 3,2 years. Dental status was assessed by the value of the intensity coefficient of carious process, and the level of dental care according to the generally accepted formula of P.A. Leus. RESULTS OF THE STUDY: It was found that the dental status of underwater equipment operators differs significantly in the number of decayed and extracted teeth, and although their coefficient of intensity of the carious process did not have statistical differences, it was significantly less (10 units) than in the comparison group (11 units). These features were naturally reflected in the reliable differences in the indicator of the level of dental care. In the group of operators of underwater technical means, it amounted to 92,4 ± 14,1%, and in the group of officers of the St. Petersburg garrison — 57,1 ± 18,4%. There were no significant differences in the study parameters when patients were divided into subgroups by age (young, medium). CONCLUSION: Despite the peculiarities of professional activity, the dental status and the level of dental care for underwater equipment operators are better than for officers of the St. Petersburg garrison. This can be explained not only by the higher level of medical and preventive dental care for these servicemen, but also by the better motivation to maintain dental health in connection with long autonomous trips.

Argentine exiles in Spain: Translation as a practice of solidarity

s part of its solidarity activities with Chilean, Uruguayan, and Argentine exiles in Catalonia, the NGO Agermanament led by Father Josep Ribera and the Lliga dels Drets dels Pobles published a register of exiles organized according to their professional activity in the magazine Agermanamentin 1979. The categories included in the list were “visual artists, doctors/psychologists, psychoanalysts and psychiatrists, musicians, actors and singers, publicists, jurists, architects, and photographers”. Translatorswere not included in the list, even thoughtheirprofessional status had been recognized by the UNESCO in 1976 and thousands of Latin American exiles who had fled dictatorships and arrived in Spain without refugee status were working as translators. Due to the toll on the publishing sector, heavily damaged by political and cultural repression, numerous exiled Latin American intellectuals and writers entered the Catalan publishing industryas translators, proofreaders, and editors. Thisarticle aims to shed light on the quantitative and qualitative importance of translation as a practice of solidarity within the publishing sector during the Spanish transition to democracy. I want to show that members of the Latin American diaspora contributed to the constitution of a transnational publishing space, which was possible thanks to the solidarity of local publishers and exiles who created a labor network through the commission of translations.

The clinical pharmacology and therapeutics course for graduating medical students at Dartmouth: Preparation for internship and residency.

This manuscript is a description of the clinical pharmacology and therapeutics (CPT) course that is required to be taken, and passed, by all medical students at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth during their final year of training, prior to entering their internship/residency. We present a detailed CPT course curriculum, which includes the novel use of simulated expected professional activities (EPAs) and an analysis of the level of confidence the students who took the course had at the beginning and at the end of the course in performing the three simulated EPAs. The course currently consists of 31 h of presentations on what are considered major clinical pharmacology topics and is led by two clinical pharmacologists at Dartmouth (D.W.N. and L.D.L.) supplementedby therapeutic area specialist faculty. In addition, the Dartmouth CPT course incorporates three required simulated entrustable professional activities (EPAs) focused on drug prescribing. These are written exercises, completed outside scheduled class hours, and submitted to and evaluated by the course directors with individual feedback to each medical student. We present preliminary data on the benefits of using these simulated EPAs in undertaking what we consider are three pivotal prescribing skills. The Dartmouth CPT course is unique and is only mirrored by a small number of US medical schools. The students showed a significant improvement in their level of confidence in performing the three simulated EPAs at the end of the course.

Взаимообусловленность развития критического мышления и образовательной субъектности в структуре совокупности метапредметных компетенций у обучающихся на ступени высшего образования

The purpose of the research is to theoretically conceptualise the educational potential of higher education in the development of a set of metacompetencies as an ability to realise productive activity not only in specific areas of education, but also in all spheres of life in accordance with modern socio-cultural challenges. The article deals with the essence of meta-skills, their key role in the life activity of a person in post-industrial society, his/her self-realisation in professional activity. Special attention is drawn to the development of critical thinking and educational subjectness of students as significant meta-skills in the implementation of independent cognitive activity, providing life-long learning. The scientific novelty of the research lies in the substantiation of the importance of the development of critical thinking and educational subjectness as components of the meta-goal of the educational process at the level of higher education on the basis of working out the means of their realisation via the pedagogical design of the educational-methodical complex of each academic discipline.

Fostering language awareness for integration through teacher-researcher collaboration in a Spanish bilingual education context

Research on Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) programmes has shown that teachers find it difficult to integrate content and language in their teaching, and that this may be due to a lack of a specific type of teacher language awareness (TLA) for this type of teaching. This study explores how TLA for CLIL is manifested in metatalk in the context of a collaborative professional development activity, which took place in a bilingual secondary school in Madrid (Spain). Content and language teachers in pairs designed content and language integrated instructional sequences, implemented them, and assessed the students’ output. Four sessions in which teachers reflected on the activity, in collaboration with researchers, were audio recorded, transcribed, and analyzed. The data were analyzed using a social realist framework for investigating knowledge-building practices, Legitimation Code Theory (LCT). The analysis showed how content and language teachers refer to three types of knowledge (content, language, and language and content integration) in terms of ‘what’ is known (conceptual frameworks) and ‘how’ it is approached (following specific methods). The results confirm the importance of developing CLIL teachers’ language awareness through on-site collaboration which is closely linked to their normal teaching activities.

Relevant Issues of Future Educational Psychologists’ Readiness to Design Professional Activities in an Innovative Educational Environment

Relevant Issues of Future Educational Psychologists’ Readiness to Design Professional Activities in an Innovative Educational Environment

National Academy of Burns India (NABI) online tutorials: A pursuance of excellence in burns education

IntroductionThe COVID-19 pandemic led to a sudden halt in the academic activities of all medical professionals including burns and plastic surgery. Worldwide, this led to many societies switching over to various virtual platforms like Google Meet and Zoom for teaching and training. In India, as the other plastic surgery societies were starting educational webinars, the National Academy of Burns India (NABI) also geared up for its web journey of imparting burn education to doctors and the general population. MethodologyWebinars were conducted in four series – acute burn care, post-burn reconstructions, video demonstrations of burn procedures, and research in burns. The first series included a specialist from an allied department. To reach the public and non-medical population, the burn tutorials for general awareness were live-streamed on social media, and the teaching was done in the form of a panel discussion between the speakers and moderators. ResultsA total of 54 webinars including 29 for professionals and 25 for the public were conducted between October 2020 to December 2023 in four series. The participation of professionals on the virtual platform was comparable to a burns conference and an extremely encouraging response towards the NABI online tutorials conducted on social media for the public was received. ConclusionNABI webinars showed that education in burns is possible on a virtual platform under special circumstances like the COVID-19 pandemic and can be used as an adjunct to regular teaching and training. The public awareness webinars also served as ready-to-refer resource material for the general population.

Physical inactivity and sedentary behavior in individuals with stable COPD non-infected by SARS-CoV-2 during the COVID-19 pandemic

Objective: to identify factors associated to sedentary behavior and physical inactivity in individuals with stable chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) non-infected by SARS-CoV-2 during the COVID-19 pandemic, and to identify possible favorable conditions during social isolation in individuals who performed pulmonary rehabilitation in the pre-pandemic period. Method: time/day in sedentary activities and moderate/vigorous physical activities (SA and MVPA, respectively), history of previous rehabilitation, laboural activity, symptoms, insecurity and quality of life (Medical Outcomes Study 36-item Short-Form Health Survey [SF-36]) were assessed during strict social isolation due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Individuals were classified as sedentary if presenting time/day in SA >8.5 h/day and physically inactive if presenting time/day in MVPA <150 min/week. Result: The sample consisted of 33 individuals (69±7 years; 20 male). Regarding the SF-36, non-sedentary individuals presented better functional capacity than sedentary individuals (65 [38-73] vs. 33 [20-63] points; p=0.01) whereas physically active individuals presented better physical and social function than physically inactive individuals (100 [100-100] vs. 50 [25-100] points, p=0.049; and 100 [100-100] vs. 75 [69-100] points, p=0.022, respectively). Having a professional activity and working outside were associated with non-sedentary behavior (X2=5.93; p=0.025 and X2=7.03; p=0.009, respectively). Having undergone rehabilitation previously to the pandemic was associated with less insecurity to walk outside (X2=4.95; p=0.034) and better perception of symptoms’ worsening (X2=5.46; p=0.033). Conclusion: non-sedentarism was associated with functional capacity and laboural activity; active lifestyle was associated with physical and social function; and previous rehabilitation was associated with better symptoms’ recognition and less insecurity.

Incorporation of Trauma-Informed Care Into Entrustable Professional Activities for Medical Student Assessment.

Trauma-informed care (TIC) provides a medical framework for addressing and mitigating the negative consequences of trauma. In response to student and faculty advocacy, medical schools are developing trauma-informed curricular content. However, medical education literature does not present a comprehensive assessment rubric to evaluate medical students' acquisition of trauma-informed clinical skills. A committee of medical students, trainees, and faculty developed a longitudinal TIC curricular theme at Harvard Medical School (HMS). Guided by the National Collaborative on Trauma-Informed Health Care Education and Research competencies, the committee created a set of medical student TIC competencies from July to December 2019. From November 2021 to November 2022, 3 committee subgroups generated new TIC descriptors for each HMS entrustable professional activity (EPA), then circulated these to other subgroups, external experts, and stakeholders for review and feedback. From April to June 2023, the committee iteratively reviewed the materials until reaching consensus for content and pedagogy. The committee integrated TIC content into HMS's existing EPAs expected of students, provided anchoring descriptions of each level, and achieved consensus using a process of iterative review with TIC content experts. The committee identified 10 TIC competencies and revised all 13 general HMS EPAs to include specific items based on these competencies. The committee incorporated at least 1 trauma-informed competency into each HMS EPA. This novel set of HMS EPAs provides a framework for assessment of TIC clinical skills. Faculty will be trained to correctly and reliably incorporate TIC competencies into patient care and to use the TIC-inclusive EPAs for student assessment, ensuring that TIC is standard medical practice at HMS. This work may facilitate the adoption of trauma-inclusive EPAs by other institutions to educate the next generation of physicians to practice TIC and thus promote a more accessible, safe, and equitable health care system.

Влияние современных симуляционных тренажеров на развитие навыков командной работы: согласованных действий и коммуникации

<p style="text-align: justify;">The article presents a review of a number of modern foreign studies of simulators and their role in the development of teamwork skills. The analysis of some trending learning theories and methodologies, which are used by both national and foreign researchers in the implementation of training programs on simulators of professional activity is carried out. The results of studies demonstrating the influence of computer simulators on the development of teamwork skills, including aspects of coordinated actions and effective communication are presented. Various methods and means used by foreign researchers to improve the effectiveness of simulation-based training are described. The importance of using simulation-based training in various professional fields, such as medicine, aviation, space programs and information technology, to ensure a high level of training of specialists is substantiated. It is shown that modern simulation-based simulators offer training methods that are maximally close to real professional activity, which contributes to the formation of highly qualified specialists in professional fields that require high development of teamwork skills.</p>

Integration of Entrustable Professional Activities in a Competency-Based Clinical Assessment Tool in a Nurse Practitioner Program.

Entrustable professional activities (EPAs) are used in competency-based clinical assessment. Faculty in a Family Nurse Practitioner program aimed to improve their clinical assessment tool to more effectively measure students' clinical performance, outline expectations, track progress, and document evidence related to clinical competence. EPAs that aligned with the American Association of Colleges of Nursing Essentials and National Organization of Nurse Practitioner (NP) Faculties Core NP Competencies were integrated into a clinical assessment tool. Student performance expectations at different points in the program were outlined. Students documented each time they performed an EPA during clinical experiences. The EPA-based clinical assessment tool captured valuable information about student performance during clinical experiences and contributed to evidence related to competencies. EPAs can be used to assess clinical performance and document evidence of competence and readiness for practice. Tracking the frequency of EPA performance was essential to ensure students had sufficient practice.