Journal of Pharmaceutical Care & Health Systems
Open Access

Abstract

Longitudinal Assessment of Students’ Communication and Professionalism Skills across All Levels of a Pharm D Curriculum

Thompson M, Gilliam E, Nuffer W

Introduction: A rubric was established and used across three diverse introductory pharmacy practice experience (IPPE) settings for five semesters of the entry-level doctor of pharmacy program to evaluate students’ abilities to develop and demonstrate skills of communication and professionalism. This rubric was analyzed to determine how students perform across these settings as they progress through the curriculum. Methods: The class of 2016 was selected and 950 evaluations of 156 students were analyzed. The rubric was broken down into four communication domains and five professionalism domains. Student performance was analyzed in aggregate for communication and professionalism, as well as by the domains in each category. Results: Students scored consistently high in both communication and professionalism across all five semesters. Communication was consistently scored higher than professionalism. The P1 spring service-learning evaluations were statistically lower than all other evaluations. Conclusion: A standardized rubric focused on nine domains of communication and professionalism provides objective data that pharmacy students are successfully developing these key skills within the experiential IPPE curriculum.