Report of the 2017-2018 Strategic Engagement Standing Committee

Professional Education

Increasing student engagement has been suggested as a means of minimizing apathy, thus improving learning. The results of a study that measured students’ previous and future academic performance suggested that engagement is important for future performance.³ As the pharmacist’s role continues to expand within healthcare, schools and colleges of pharmacy are tasked with enhancing their curricula to prepare their students for the future better. The 2016 ACPE Standards include student, faculty, and preceptor engagement as part of service, professional development, and components of innovation and leadership. As such, schools and colleges of pharmacy across the country have developed innovative practices to provide opportunities for student engagement and ensuring the success of pharmacy students upon graduation. From developing leadership seminars and interprofessional courses to enhancing experiential learning opportunities, schools and colleges of pharmacy have been able to adapt to the changing landscape of healthcare. A website analysis and literature search conducted by Feller and colleagues identified 191 student pharmacist leadership development opportunities including courses, speakers, seminars, workshops, retreats, certifications, degrees, and institutes. The authors of the article concluded that knowledge of the variety of opportunities that promote student leadership development might promote the formation of new activities in schools and colleges of pharmacy where there are currently few such opportunities.⁴

Student engagement plays a significant role in both student development and the establishment of successful educational practices. An essential component towards this goal is to gain an understanding of student motivation in general, how it changes throughout the curriculum, and why some students stay engaged while others do not. Furthermore, it is important to understand what we as educators can do to engage various types of learners, from introverts to extroverts, for example.

During the pre-pharmacy stage of the professional education process, the student’s primary motivation is to be accepted into a PharmD program. This motivates students to be engaged in their didactic coursework, get involved in various organizations on campus, and even pursue a pharmacy-related job to make them a well-rounded candidate for their desired PharmD program.⁵ In a survey to assess pre-pharmacy student’s perceptions of the professional role of pharmacists prior to their enrollment at Purdue University, grade point average (GPA) and application to pharmacy school were associated with significant differences in the theory of planned behavior and professional commitment subscales. In the professional commitment section, the statement “It is important for me to graduate from pharmacy school” received the highest mean score on the seven-point Likert scale among the 37 questions assessed. For students at this stage, there is a link between engagement and acceptance into a program. Schools and colleges of pharmacy can incorporate this concept to connect pre-pharmacy students to their program. For example, a program may be interested in establishing a pre-pharmacy organization with a pharmacy faculty member as an advisor in order to initiate a relationship between pre-pharmacy students and the students and faculty from the PharmD program. One of the most difficult challenges with engaging pre-pharmacy students is being able to communicate and connect with students outside of the program effectively.⁶ Previous research has shown that faculty members, pharmacists, and students enrolled in the PharmD program play a vital role in influencing individuals to pursue careers in pharmacy. Organizations and events that are designed to bring students into contact with the profession are beneficial to student involvement and engagement. Pre-pharmacy organizations introduce students to pharmacy practice, faculty members, current pharmacy students, and the program itself. Schools and colleges of pharmacy can also make arrangements to associate with pre-pharmacy students and connect them to the program prior to their acceptance. Teaching communities, career fairs, organization fairs, and networking events provide the opportunity for pre-pharmacy students to be included in the pharmacy community and create the foundation from which student engagement can continue to grow.

Student pharmacists’ engagement in curricular content has been improved by using different pedagogies. Community engagement can include activities such as community service, service learning, and other methods of using institutional resources to solve community problems or challenges. Several publications address service learning in the curriculum^7-12 and ways to engage students both in didactic and experiential learning. Once accepted into a professional program, motivation for student engagement tends to shift toward developing the skills needed to grow as a well-rounded practitioner. A student’s engagement during the professional program is highly dependent on personal goals and aspirations. The decision to participate in certain elective courses, pharmacy organizations, or leadership opportunities are typically based on specific student interest. Most schools and colleges of pharmacy offer a wide variety of elective courses, extracurricular activities, committees, and organizations in which students can participate and take on various leadership roles. One of the greatest challenges students face in this regard is choosing from an overwhelming amount of opportunities, including professional organizations, for example, combined with the perceived expectation of being a well-rounded student with above average grades and involvement in extracurricular activities. Oftentimes students get involved in a variety of courses and pharmacy organizations, but their engagement in these experiences may be minimal and limited to an entry on their curriculum vitae (CV). Pharmacy educators can play a critical role in mentoring pharmacy students and exposing them to opportunities based on their interests as well as personal and professional goals while emphasizing quality of engagement. Schools and colleges of pharmacy continue to incorporate new opportunities for students to engage within their programs. The University of Texas at Austin College of Pharmacy has established Academic Assistant (AA) and Advanced Academic Assistant (AAA) programs in which students function as teaching assistants for various courses. These are paid positions in which students help the course coordinator with various activities and logistics while assisting students within their program. Institutions can also promote student engagement by allowing students to hold positions on various committees within the college or school of pharmacy, such as the curriculum committee, academic fairness or grades appeal committee, recruitment and selection committees, among others. ACPE Standards also highlight student involvement in various committees as part of accreditation criteria for schools and colleges of pharmacy. Providing opportunities for students to work alongside faculty, staff, and administrators within the institution may also be beneficial in enhancing student engagement and satisfaction. When mentored or guided by pharmacy educators, students are more willing to engage in activities and develop skills that cannot be taught in the classroom.

In an assessment of healthcare careers by Forbes, pharmacy was identified as the most attractive healthcare career.¹³ This does not, unfortunately, correlate with pharmacist engagement and satisfaction, which is a result consistent across a variety of survey types. An analysis completed by The Advisory Board of 36 different healthcare services ranked pharmacy 34th out of 36 for employee engagement.¹⁴ There are several ways that student pharmacists can be engaged after graduation through opportunities for service to the school or college of pharmacy and the university at large by serving, for example, on college and university committees, as preceptors, and as alumni mentors. Many schools and colleges of pharmacies also have roles for alumni to serve on the admissions, professional development/continuing education programs, and curriculum and assessment committees, to name a few. Pharmacists can contribute to the advancement of the profession by volunteering to serve within local, state, national, and international pharmacy organizations. Serving as reviewers of journals, books, abstracts and continuing education programs are other ways to stay engaged. Furthermore, alumni have opportunities to engage with schools or colleges of pharmacy through various continuing education events, mentoring programs, preceptor development, networking sessions, as well as through local chapters of various professional organizations. The University of Colorado Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences is an example of one school that has an active alumni association in which alumni can continue to interact with fellow alumni and current students in social and educational venues. St. John’s University has an alumni program where select students visit Washington, DC, and engage with alumni in government and non-traditional pharmacy practice careers to learn about alternative career paths and professional engagement as part of lifelong learning. Programs such as these allow students and alumni to engage and build lasting relationships.

Walmart Scholars: A Case Study

One national program that engages students and faculty mentors to stay connected, particularly in academia, is the AACP Walmart Scholars Program. This program recognizes student-faculty teams from schools and colleges of pharmacy across the US and provides students an opportunity to learn about career paths in academia, promote lifelong learning and partnership, and stay engaged within the profession. Student-faculty teams apply to the Scholars program through a competitive process that involves an essay; teams are chosen by reviewers comprised of former mentors spanning various schools and colleges of pharmacy. If selected, teams are invited to attend the AACP annual meeting and are provided specific programming including a teacher’s seminar and special sessions devoted to furthering the student-faculty mentorship and promoting lifelong learning. For the purposes of this report, our committee decided to survey past Walmart scholars, students and faculty mentors to assess their level of engagement as a student and better understand student engagement and motivation among this convenient sample. A survey of 15 questions on the level of engagement as well as demographic information was designed by the committee for the student scholars, and a separate survey of eight questions on the level of engagement as well as demographic information was designed for the faculty mentors. The specific questions are presented in Appendices 2 and 3. The survey was disseminated via Survey Monkey^® to the emails provided on the scholars’ applications. Of the 1429 surveys sent, 221 responses were collected. The findings are discussed below.

From the student survey, findings showed:

• • ∼43% of respondents attended Walmart Scholars program at the end of P3 year and 20% attended as a resident or fellow.

• • Approximately 77% of past Scholars who responded were female.

• • 41% are currently in academia with hospital practice being next highest at 26%.

• • On a scale of 1-100, students reported an average level of engagement of 81 as both a student and now practicing pharmacist or educator.

• • Almost all scholars (97%) felt satisfied with opportunities for engagement at their school; half were very satisfied, half somewhat satisfied.

• • More than 70% reported career goals, mentorship, and altruism were motivating factors for engagement, about 60% reported building CV was a motivation, and a little over 50% reported networking as a motivating factor.

• • More than 60% were specifically approached by faculty to apply to the Scholars program; others approached faculty.

• • Almost half (43%) applied to be a scholar at the end of the P3 year, followed by a little less than 30% who applied as a resident or fellow; and slightly greater than 10% applied as graduate students.

• • More than 90% were engaged before participating as a scholar (60% very engaged; 30% somewhat engaged), with most engagement reported in the survey via student organizations (79%) where 54 respondents held either one or more leadership positions; about 9% had limited or no engagement prior to the scholars program.

• • About 95% students reported being either very engaged (64%) or somewhat engaged (27%) after participating in the scholars program, and 4% reported no change in level of engagement.

• • Email and text were reported as majority of mode of communication with mentors (over 90%); more than 50% reported using telephone.³

From the faculty mentor survey, findings showed:

• • Approximately 69% of faculty respondents were female.

• • Age from 27-69 years old.

• • On a scale of 1-100, faculty reported an average level of engagement of 76.

• • The majority of the faculty (86%) felt at least somewhat engaged before participating in the Walmart Scholars program. This percent increased to 89% after participation in the Walmart Scholars program.

• • On a scale of 1-100, faculty reported an average level of engagement in the pharmacy community of 74.

• • Interestingly, all of the faculty who were past Walmart Scholar mentors reported their average level of engagement slightly lower than that of the students in aggregate.

Research and Scholarship

According to the 2016 ACPE Standards, scholarship is a required element a school or college of pharmacy’s vision, mission, and goals, and these academic institutions must require and promote scholarship.¹ Boyer defined four categories of scholarship: the scholarship of discovery or original research, the scholarship of integration or review of literature, the scholarship of application or translational research, and the scholarship of teaching and learning.¹⁵ While faculty members at public institutions tend to have a more productive scholarly output due to the research-based focus of their institutions than their colleagues at private institutions, scholarship is one of the key important areas of faculty responsibilities regardless of their setting, and a balance between teaching, scholarship, and service is important for all faculty members to have successful careers.^16,17 Faculty members should engage students in research and scholarship by creating time and opportunities for student intellectual development and scholarly pursuits.¹⁸ There are many benefits to offering such experiences to students before, during, and after pharmacy school.¹⁹ These benefits include improving critical thinking skills, building foundational research knowledge, increasing interest in future research, developing project management and teamwork skills, interacting with inspirational mentors, developing an appreciation for research networks, creating effective research mentors, providing a supervised experience with the publication process, helping institutions fulfilling their mission and goals, increasing marketability, and giving to the profession and medical community.¹⁹ Schools and colleges are encouraged to employ various methods to engage students in research and scholarship. For example, faculty members at the University of Arizona conducted a multi-faceted intervention consisting of a 120-minute lecture on publication of quality improvement projects and study research findings, and an abstract and poster workshops, followed by a reminder at an APPE meeting encouraging students to publish and present their findings. This low-cost intervention led to a significant increase in the percent of students who published or presented their findings from 64% to 81%.²⁰ Faculty members at Chicago College of Pharmacy at Midwestern University implemented a near-peer training model to promote the development of research competencies where senior learners precepted junior learners under the supervision of a research mentor. This promising strategy, which enrolled 43 students, resulted in 100 poster presentations at national meetings and 20 peer reviewed publications.²¹ One can argue that scholarly activities can help pharmacy graduates stand out in a competitive environment and position themselves for success. In fact, students with research experience were more likely to apply to a PGY1 residency program than those with no research experience.²²

Other opportunities to engage with pre-pharmacy school students include a graduate research program where mentees (undergraduate and pharmacy students), were paired with mentors (graduate students). In this program at Purdue University, matched pairs were required to discuss research and their careers at least two times. Both mentees and mentors completed a pre and post assessment. Qualitative survey results showed an increase in the mentees perceptions of research, allowed for greater networking and development of relationships, and provided sufficient information about research and research-related careers. In addition, mentors believed that their mentoring skills improved as a result of this program.²³

Service Initiatives

Students at this point in their education may be “wide-eyed” and open to many possibilities as their education unfolds; nevertheless, there is an opportunity for schools and colleges of pharmacy to engage and capture student’s attention and attract them to the health sciences and the profession of pharmacy, among other career choices. While this may be challenging, programs that seek to establish a career pipeline to pharmacy may be better able to recruit and retain applicants. Some examples of how schools and colleges of pharmacy may engage the pre-pharmacy school student include: pre-health organizations that aim to expose students to a variety of career choices, community health fairs where members of the public can engage with student pharmacists to learn more about the profession, orientation programs that bring interested students to campus to learn more about a particular school of pharmacy, and programs that mentor high schools students.

Engaging in community service activities with high school students, while promoting the profession of pharmacy, may be a best practice approach to student engagement. In one such report from the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Pharmacy, a framework for high school pathways to pharmacy program was detailed. The aims of the study, in part, were to determine whether underrepresented minority populations that participated in this program motivated them to pursue pre-pharmacy coursework in college and subsequently to pursue pharmacy as a career. After completion of a six-week program, in which three weeks were spent in a pre-pharmacy curriculum with intensive socialization and three weeks were spent working in a chain pharmacy, 75% of students had indicated plans to pursue pharmacy as a career by enrolling in a pre-pharmacy curriculum. This is in comparison to 33% of students who had expressed an interest in pharmacy before the start of the program. Components of this program that students found most meaningful included participation in rounds with physicians and pharmacists, and shadowing faculty preceptors; whereas, the least meaningful activity was public speaking.²⁴

During pharmacy school is perhaps the best opportunity to engage students in service activities, as many schools and colleges of pharmacy have professional development and/or service requirements needed for graduation. In addition, students may be more likely to take part in these activities since they may be at the height of their interest and involvement in the profession and would seem to be an opportune time for schools and colleges of pharmacy to capture and retain their interest, so they can become engaged alumni post-graduation. Some examples of how students can get more involved in service activities at their school include student organization led patient care/service projects, medical missions, global advanced pharmacy practice experiences (APPEs), competitive internships, poster presentations, and school pride events/competitions.

Academic service learning is perhaps a best practice approach to engaging students during their time in pharmacy school. Academic service learning can be defined as “a form of experiential education in which students engage in activities that address human and community needs together with structured opportunities intentionally designed to promote student learning and development. Reflection and reciprocity are key components of service learning.”²⁵ Service learning however can be broken down into components that are more practical. It must: 1) meet the needs of the community, 2) establish a relationship between the community and academic institution, 3) help to foster civic responsibility, 4) be integrated into the required curriculum, 5) provide structure to reflect on the service component, 6) enhance what is taught in school, and 7) balance the service that is provided with learning that takes place.²⁶ Simply put, service learning helps to connect classroom concepts to real-world situations and provides a venue for faculty to illustrate these concepts in action. It has been reported that service-learning activities may also help to improve student communication skills, cultural awareness, community stakeholder and civic awareness, interprofessional team building, critical thinking skills, leadership skills enhanced content knowledge, enhanced community engagement, and increased awareness of issues affecting various population groups and social factors influencing adherence to therapy. Furthermore, these activities may help to better sensitize students to community needs and resources, instill social responsibility, and highlight the real-world applications of their education.^27,28 In a convenience sample of 34 schools, a survey found that 85.3% included some sort of service-learning activity, up from a 2004 report that found 75.7% of schools provided service learning opportunities.^27,29

Some notable examples of activities include the following:

• 1. HealthWISE - An elective course collaboration between three schools of pharmacy (University of the Pacific, University of Arizona, Washington State University) designed to expose elementary students to science education using student pharmacists as instructors of this course in partnership with elementary teachers. In this report, student pharmacists self-reported improvements in communication and health promotion skills while elementary teachers reported that they were satisfied with the student pharmacist performance.

• 2. AdvoCaring - A longitudinal program that was designed to help meet the health care needs of an underserved population in Baltimore. In this report, students were able to provide over 10,000 hours of service across various partner agencies. Student feedback was overall positive (“I have learned important lessons from my experiences, experiences have or will positively impact how I care for patients, a valuable learning experience”). The program was mapped to ACPE Standards 3 and 4, as well as Appendix 2.

• 3. Establishment of a peer-mentoring program. In this example, P3 and P4 students served as mentors and were paired with P1 or P2 students. Pairs were asked to meet periodically to work on projects to help guide the mentees towards their personal and professional goals.

Other activities that are common to most schools of pharmacy that could be considered service learning include health fair events, immunization clinics, indigent clinics, community-based educational activities, college/university-based health awareness or education event, and camp health events. Student organizations, notably APhA-ASP, provide multiple platforms for student chapters to engage in, and receive national recognition for, service projects aimed at educating patients, advocacy, and engaging in efforts to advance the profession. Similarly, the AACP Student Community Engaged Service Award is an opportunity for the Association to recognize outstanding student-community engagement projects. According to the Association, this award “recognizes a community-engaged service program developed and delivered by AACP member pharmacy colleges/schools. The institution is to identify a team of students who have initiated relevant projects” (AACP, student community engaged service awards, 2013-14 program information description). While this award is no longer presented, if reinstated, it could serve as another motivating factor to encourage faculty and students alike to complete a substantial service project that benefits the community. Financial incentives need not be part of the award, but a platform to share best practices and gain recognition would be beneficial.

While service-learning activities may be very enriching and rewarding and may help bridge classroom content to the real world, some challenges remain. First, students may feel as if they are losing out on the “university or college experience” and not being able to socialize with friends as much. There is also the issue of making time for these activities and highlighting their relevance to the student. Lastly, it may be difficult to encourage student organizational participation as student pharmacists have heavy schedules.

Perhaps the most challenging time for schools and colleges of pharmacy to engage with their students is after graduation since student expectations and requirements are no longer present. If schools can capture and enlist their alumni to help give back to the school community, then there exists a great potential to impact the current student body and engage them further. One example of how to engage alumni include community service activities that include alumni. For example, at Palm Beach Atlantic University, an alumnus and a faculty member may co-lead a team of pharmacy students on a medical mission trip supported financially by the pharmacy school.

Professional Practice

The Pharmacists’ Patient Care Process is a key tenet of patient care provided by pharmacists and applicable to all patient care settings. Released by the Joint Commission of Pharmacy Practitioners (JCPP) in 2014, the concept affirms the value of team-based patient-centered care in which pharmacists continually collaborate with patients, families and caregivers to optimize medication use and health outcomes.³⁰ Despite advances in pharmacy practice and incorporation of pharmacists in the patient care team, public perception of the role of pharmacists is often limited. Community practice is predominantly based in retail and mass-merchandiser settings in which the pharmacist may not be fully integrated in the health care team. Access to the patient health care record is often lacking and interaction with other providers may be limited to electronic communication and occasional phone calls. Retail settings are often quite busy, which compounds the difficulty in interacting with other members of the health care team.

Pharmacy schools often develop programs to expose high school and undergraduate students interested in health care careers to the field of pharmacy. At the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, high school students may enroll in week-long classes that expose students to compounding activities, shadowing experiences and sample lectures. Faculty members also invite potential students to spend time with them in their clinic settings to foster awareness of various practice settings beyond traditional dispensing environments. Current pharmacy students play an important part in fostering awareness of the pharmacy profession through participation in high school summer camp programs and highlighting experiential learning sites in which they have practiced. Similarly, once students are enrolled in schools and colleges of pharmacy, they often are presented with opportunities to participate in innovative pharmacy practice sites and other entrepreneurial activities. An example of a recent innovation is a recent ACCP White Paper in which the authors described comprehensive medication management within an interprofessional telehealth care team.³¹ The authors specifically address the expectation that both professional degree and postgraduate residency training programs will begin to incorporate telehealth training experiences in their educational rotations. Other authors have called on the profession to consider incorporating opportunities in the education process to encourage and improve pharmacy students’ intellectual curiosity and entrepreneurial drive in the practice of pharmacy in order to create new and innovative health care delivery models, services and therapies.^32,33

Educational institutions often offer career services and job placement coaching as employment rates upon graduation is a marker of a successful professional program. However, it is also a desire of schools and colleges of pharmacy to maintain relationships with their graduates to serve as preceptors for incoming and current students. Unfortunately, pharmacy students often graduate feeling burned out and ready to move forward in their own careers rather than maintaining ties with their alma mater. Recent graduates also report a desire to achieve better work-life balance than that experienced during the professional training.

Early career pharmacists have reported disillusionment with their career opportunities following graduation, particularly in those practice models with limited clinical activities. Pharmacists’ job satisfaction often improves when they are involved in more direct patient care activities.³⁴ Little is known about how often pharmacists change jobs during their professional career and associated barriers, yet schools of pharmacy may be positioned to continue to engage their graduates with additional training and certification courses to assist with job transitions and acquiring positions that require more advanced skills.

Despite challenges of career burnout, declining reimbursement for medications, and fragmentation within the profession, a key opportunity for pharmacy schools and the profession is to highlight career opportunities beyond traditional settings and roles. Healthcare reform is evolving to value-based delivery models in which healthcare providers as a whole help patients improve their health, reduce the burden of chronic disease, and live healthier lives. Through highlighting roles pharmacists play in in patient care, training students and preceptors on the process of medication management, and helping alumni to maintain and grow their clinical patient care activities, pharmacy schools may best engage potential, current, and future students.

Continuing Professional Development (CPD)

Continuing education (CE) has been a necessary component for maintaining professional competency. Many states require CE hours for licensure renewal including specific hours in pharmacy law, opioid management, and sterile products preparation. CE approved by the Board of Pharmacy specialties is also required to maintain board certification. The traditional CE delivery is often in the form of lectures at conferences as well as online learning and quizzes.

For the professional PharmD curriculum, ACPE Standards 2016 require colleges and schools of pharmacy to demonstrate students develop a commitment to continuous professional development (CPD) and self-directed lifelong learning.¹ Just as CE has been required to maintain licensure, students need to learn the important role CPD plays in their professional development. This reflects a shift in ACPE policy from CE to true ongoing professional development.

ACPE defines CPD as “a self-directed, ongoing, systematic and outcomes-focused approach to lifelong learning that is applied into practice. It involves the process of active participation in formal and informal learning activities that assist individuals in developing and maintaining continuing competence, enhancing their professional practice, and supporting achievement of their career goals.”³⁵

The components of the CPD approach include the following:

• • Reflect: Requiring pharmacists to reflect on their personal and professional lives and self-assess their learning needs and goals.

• • Plan: Formulating a personal development plan to accomplish identified learning needs.

• • Learn and Apply: The pharmacist puts the professional development plan into action to meet identified learning objectives utilizing and appropriate range of learning activities and methods and apply the learned knowledge, skills, and attitudes, and values are then applied into practice.

• • Evaluate: The pharmacist assesses how successful the personal development plan has been in meeting stated learning needs by considering outcomes and impact.

• • Record and Review: Documenting learning needs, learning objectives, and learning plans and learning progress aligned with career goals.

• • Learning Portfolio (or CPD Portfolio): A collection of material that records and reflects past experiences as well as present and planned activities in order to achieve identified learning needs.

As practitioners migrate towards this new method of professional development, colleges and schools of pharmacy are incorporating CPD and lifelong learning into current PharmD curricula.

Students are currently engaged in CPD activities through curricular and co-curricular education. ACPE Standards 2016 require colleges and schools to describe the processes by which students are guided to develop CPD.¹ O’Brocta and colleagues developed and evaluated a CPD process for first-year pharmacy (P1) students at St. John Fisher Wegmans School of Pharmacy. Students and faculty were introduced and trained on CPD. Students were required to identify a learning objective and follow the CPD cycle to assess achievement of the learning objective. They met with their faculty advisor on a regular basis throughout the year to monitor their progress. Seventy-five students (100%) of the P1 class successfully completed the CPD process during their first year in the professional program. They concluded that including CPD in the college’s curriculum was a valuable addition for the student’ ability to develop life-long learning skills.³⁶

CPD has also been utilized in pharmacy curricula to evaluate the development of specific skills. At the University of Iowa College of Pharmacy, a CPD tool was developed and implemented to evaluate development of leadership skills.³⁷ Students were required to complete two CPD cycles during a leadership elective that was conducted during one semester. Most students were successful in establishing a personal leadership development plan and found the use of the CPD assessment tool effective.

At the University of Texas at Austin College of Pharmacy (UTCOP), students are introduced to CPD during the Foundations of Professional Development (FPD) six-course sequence. The FPD course sequence was designed to address components of ACPE Standards 2016, Standard 4: Personal and Professional Development. Students are required to develop two online portfolios, the Professional Development Portfolio (PDP) and Personal Life Plan (PLP). The students utilize the portfolios to document reflections, development self-awareness, leadership and professional development. The PDP and PLP are tools for students to identify goals, develop and document action plans, and track their development as they progress through the curriculum. UTCOP’s intent is to inculcate these habits in students at the beginning and throughout the program so students will take these skills into their professional practice. Lifelong learning is not an occurrence, but a major part of professional practice.

Introduction of CPD in college and school curricula is an important first-step in inculcating this important aspect in professional development in future practitioners. As continuing education providers migrate from traditional CE delivery to CPD, students will be able to build on these skills once they enter professional practice. CPD providers will be able to provide programming and opportunities for practitioners to continue their professional development. Many CE providers are undergoing the change to become true CPD providers.

This exciting change in professional development is not without problems. Currently, most states allow practitioners to maintain licensure through traditional CE programs. Completing CE hours during a licensure period is not difficult. Attendance at a state and/or national meeting may allow a practitioner to acquire all of the CE hours needed to renew their license. The change from CE to CPD will necessitate a change in how pharmacists view this aspect of maintaining competency. As the new generation of practitioners enter the profession, the expectation will be CPD. More seasoned practitioners will be required to embrace this new expectation to maintain licensure and competency.