Innovations in education

At the Royal Pharmaceutical Society conference 2012, one of the topics covered was on research in pharmacy education. Samuel Jee, from theUniversity of Manchester, presented his project on whether students felt thatthe MPharm degree prepared them for their pre-registration training. He interviewed20 students from different schools of pharmacy and a range of trainingbackgrounds. The research found that while many agreed that the degree helpedwith clinical knowledge it lacked in giving students a practical applicationfor their knowledge. This included low confidence when dealing with patientsand clinical checks.

Mr Jee concluded that students felt practical experience wasimportant before the pre-registration year and suggests that more integrateddegrees could be beneficial. When asked if the interviewed students were simplyoverwhelmed by their new jobs, he replied that interviews will be conducted bythe same group further on in their pre-registration year for a comparison.

Another project was presented by Catherine Langan and SangeetaJagyasi from the University of Reading. The project debated whether pharmacystudents could improve other students’ health. For the project, health checksessions were run in the students’ union where pharmacy students assessed otherstudents for healthy eating, smoking, alcohol consumption and their bloodglucose levels, blood pressure, cholesterol and BMI. The research found thatthe majority of students were healthy and if anyone was found to be over anormal range then they were given advice. This resulted in a successful servicewhere 51 per cent of the students planned to improve their health.

by Sara Valente