Pharmacy Student Outcomes: Communication, Critical Thinking, Professionalism, and more

Outcomes I’ve Mastered

Communication Skills: My written and verbal communication skills are well-developed. In fact, my most frequent compliment is my pleasantness and clarity when speaking on the phone. I am polite, sensitive, and a good listener, so my abilities are suited to patient education and tailoring the discussion to the patients’ needs and abilities. When speaking with providers and coworkers, I am confident and respectful.

Pharmaceutical Product Preparation, Dispensing and Administering: I have mastered this outcome as it applies to my likely future roles as a dispensing pharmacist. While I would not say I’m extremely proficient in compounding or IV preparation, I have enough experience that I am confident I could learn if ever required.

Critical Thinking: I am thorough and thoughtful in problem solving. I have learned how to quickly and effectively retrieve and interpret/apply/analyze/evaluate information, and will be able to do so in my future practice.

Professional Responsibility and Ethics: I am a virtuous person and committed to doing the best job possible because I owe it not only to my patients, but to myself as well. I am never a person to shirk duty or deny responsibility for an error. As a pharmacist, I feel prepared to practice within the letter of the laws and regulations while providing respectful, caring services to my community.

Social Interaction, Citizenship, Leadership, and Professionalism: I am flexible, friendly, respectful, and a good communicator, so I work well in a team. I feel I am ready to take my place in a team-based work environment.

Knowledge and Skills; Patient Assessment: I need a little more practice when it comes to assessing patients and utilizing clinical skills/knowledge. Mastering these outcomes requires hands-on experience, which I am just now able to attain in an acute care rotation setting. I have had the opportunity to assess patients and apply knowledge and skills to the point where I feel relatively competent, but needing more practice. I plan to continue developing these outcomes in my current rotation, and hopefully in a future pharmacist role.

Life-long Learning: As much as I am committed to constant development, as a personality trait, I resist change. Life-long learning will be a challenge because it means frequently confronting that barrier. Therefore, this outcome will be in constant development throughout my career, especially as I contemplate changing directions in my career.

Management: Management is a skill that takes experience to develop; while I have been effectively managing myself my whole life, I have yet had little opportunity to manage others, and no opportunity to manage resources. This is a skill that will be developed further in the future of my career. I have also recently re-evaluated my career path, so I am in the process of revising my goals and priorities.

Medication Therapy Management: I feel fairly well-developed in this area and the processes that are involved in it, but have not had many opportunities to follow patients long-term and consistently, which I feel is necessary to mastering this outcome. When I settle into my role as a pharmacist, I will likely keep that role for at least several years, allowing a longitudinal assessment of my patients’ pharmaceutical care plans.

Public Health: I have had rotation and work opportunities in a fairly wide variety of settings that attract a wide variety of patients, but I feel I could use more exposure to the inpatient environment to truly get a handle on public health issues, particularly policy and the integration of social work in healthcare.

Pharmacodynamic Decision Making: I am already addressing part of this skill deficit, clinical knowledge, by beginning to study for boards and by reviewing unfamiliar material that comes up during rotation. Mastering this outcome takes a lot of time and clinical experience, neither of which I have much of as a student. I would not expect to consider myself masterful in this outcome until several years after graduation, when I have settled into a practice site and am very attuned to that population’s needs and how to address them.

Pharmaceutical Care Plan Development: I have had limited opportunity to develop fullfledged pharmaceutical care plans, as I have rarely been in practice settings where this is practiced. I have gained some experience in each component of this outcome (establishing therapeutic goals, education, lifestyle changes) but will need more experience to put it together fluidly. I will have the ability to learn more about this at my current acute care rotation.