Implementing integrated pharmacy Education for Pharmacy Students

Abstract

Introduction: Despite the numerous changes in the pharmacy curriculum in the past few years, there's still a significant gap between graduated pharmacists' abilities and society's needs and expectations, so pharmacy education remains an important challenge in this field. Integrated education is one of the successful methods which has been used in some parts of the world like Sunderland and Michigan university. Objective: Implementing Integrated Pharmacy Education For Pharmacy Students Methods: Professors from different educational groups came together and wrote a curriculum entitled "Integrated Pharmacy Education 1" which was offered as two optional units for a maximum of 25 final year pharmacy students at the same time as the Psychology course, another optional pharmacy unit. At the end of the course, a coordination test was held between these two groups and the results of are compared between the two groups by an independent t-test. Also, at the end of the course, a survey of participants will be conducted on the extent to which they have increased their skills in managing Asthma and Cough cases in community pharmacies, as well as how the course was held. Results: Comparison of the results shows a significant difference in the scores of the two groups (p = 0.02). Also, the opinions of the participants in two consecutive courses show that this course has increased their skills in managing Asthma and Cough cases in community pharmacies and that most participants consider the existence of such a unit in the pharmacy education curriculum necessary. Discussion and Conclusion: The project implemented in this study, although not an ideal example of the integration of pharmaceutical sciences, but can be a starting point for future projects that are more fully implemented in different centers of the country.