Evaluation of peer teaching in a pharmaceutaical care laboratory

We designed a pharmaceutical care lab facility to protoplast an ambulatory pharmaceutical care practice site. In addition to an idealized physical layout, we make knowned record keeping procedures and a personnel formation intended to maximize pharmacist time for patient care activities. close examiners in the first-year of the pharmaceutical care laboratory were trained on second-year students in the technical aspects of unsalable article distribution such as computer data access preparation of patient profiles, dispensing and packaging of medications, and aseptic preparation of mix with drugss Students in the second year of the laboratory succession were cultivated in the pharmaceutical care role: patient evaluation, interpretation of medication history and profile information, identification, solving and documentation of drug-related enigmas and patient counseling. Students were assemblageed during laboratory exercises such that sum of two units first-year students provided technical support to a more advanced scholar who demonstrated techniques, provided coaching and then checked the technical sufficient fortune of the first-year students. The horizontals of competency of peer-teachertrained scholars and the validity of checklist evaluations according to the peer teachers were assessed by means of the Pharmaceutical Care Lab faculty after completion of each of three technical skills units. This paper describes the training of first-year bookish mans in technical skills by pupils in the second year of the laboratory course as well as the exercises, logistical management and assessment tools used in the technical training. We infer that peer teaching is a self-same useful teaching method for reinforcing technical skills and providing better instructor:student ratios in the laboratory.

INTRODUCTION

The Pharmaceutical Care Laboratory at Washington State University has been designed to provide close examiners with the opportunity to apply information from reprimand courses to practice-related activities. The six-semester following over three academic years, is competency-based, hierarchically structur and utilizes active learning rules The first-year of the laboratory emphasizes technical skills of that kind as compounding, aseptic technique, and prescription filling. The inferior level of the laboratory focuses forward patient care skills such as communications, assessment, identification of drug-related question at issues planning and monitoring drug therapy, and documentation. The third year of the laboratory following emphasizes population or community health care management: medicine utilization review, policy and process development, formulary management, and quality improvement. Because of the hierarchical nature of the laboratory, we reasoned that involving scholars at all three levels of the laboratory in contemporary teacherstudent groups would provide an interesting standard of the technician-pharmacist-(expert) patient paradigm. Other educators have reported that compeer teaching enhances the ability to organize and communicate information, improves retention(1), and facilitates the learning of entangled skills(2-4). Our initial experience with lord teaching in the Model Pharmacy unit of the Pharmaceutical Care Laboratory demonstrated that the [i]modus operandi[/i] was feasible and well accepted by way of students. In our second year of experience with lord teaching we were interested in determining to what extent peer teacher scoring of performance-based checklists compared to that of faculty scoring. The final causes of the peer teaching experience in the Pharmaceutical Care Laboratory at Washington State University are:

1 to perform the operations indicated in technical competence in first-year pharmacy bookish mans

2. to develop basic patient care skills in second-year pharmacy scholars

3. to reinforce the technical skills of second-year pupils by placing them in the character of teacher/evaluator,

4. to design personnel structure and record keeping transactions that maximize pharmacist time for patient care activities,

5 to improve the teacher to close examiner ratio in the professional laboratory.

METHOD

All observers in the second year of the Pharmaceutical Care Laboratory at Washington State University participate as compeer teachers for first-year students in the technical skills plain of the same laboratory following Skills presented by peer teachers fall into three areas: (i) aseptic technique; (ii) mix with drugs distribution procedures and computer data entry; and (iii) patient counseling forward prescription and over the reckoner medications. Peer teachers demonstrate, coach and then evaluate aseptic techniques, computer data passage and drug distribution procedures using a scored checklist. These exercises are structur to mimic the working relationships of pharmacists (second-year students) and technicians (first-year students) Patient counseling and advising forward over the counter drugs are taught using character playing exercises with first-year scholars playing the pharmacist role and secondyear bookish mans playing the patient role(Table 1)

The pharmaceutical care lab facility is designed to protoplast an ambulatory pharmaceutical care practice site. The "Model Pharmacy" aids a varied ambulatory population as well as a nursing fireside population. The laboratory facility is equipped with six computer workstations with retail and nursing family dispensing software, laminar flow concealments drugs, dispensing supplies, counseling desk and concern books and software. Five weeks of the spring semester in the first year of the pharmaceutical care laboratory are devot to practicing community pharmacy dispensing and patient counseling, three weeks to aseptic technique and handling antineoplastic physics and three weeks to character playing patient care with athwart the counter drugs. Most exercises move round a centre around fictitious patients who have been unfolded by the faculty and are not awayed to students on a Patient Profile, a form which the `patient' has filled not at home upon entering the pharmacy for the first time. These `patients' have between common and six prescriptions filled at the design Pharmacy over the course of the semester (Appendix A). comrade teachers in the second year of the laboratory succession act as demonstrators, coaches and evaluators. Their pupils are evaluated using scored checklists which are included in their laboratory manuals to focus them onward the skills to be learned (Appendix B) The first week of the laboratory was used to provide an introduction to medicine distribution law for the firstyear scholars and an orientation to lord teaching for the second-year learners