Academic Pharmacy Now: 2021 Issue 1

Academic Pharmacy

The News Magazine of the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy

Stronger

NOW

Volume 14 2021 Issue 1

Together Pharmacy schools are finding innovative approaches to interprofessional education, collaborating with other health professions to achieve improved patient outcomes. 18

Also in this issue: Reaching Rural Populations 8 A Push for LGBTQ Education 14

Pharmacists Help People Live Healthier, Better Lives.

who we are @AACPharmacy

Academic Pharmacy The News Magazine of the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy

Pharmacists Help People Live Healthier, Better Lives.

1400 Crystal Drive, Suite 300 P Arlington, VA 22202 703-739-2330 P www.aacp.org

Founded in 1900, the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy is the national organization representing the interests of pharmacy education. AACP comprises all accredited colleges and schools of pharmacy, including more than 6,600 faculty, approximately 63,800 students enrolled in professional programs and 4,800 individuals pursuing graduate study.

NOW

CEO & Publisher

Lucinda L. Maine Editorial Advisor

Lynette R. Bradley-Baker

Editorial Director

Maureen Thielemans Managing Editor

Jane E. Rooney

Letters to the Editor

We welcome your comments. Please submit all letters to the editor to communications@aacp.org.

About Academic Pharmacy Now

Academic Pharmacy Now highlights the work of AACP member pharmacy schools and faculty. The magazine is published as a membership service.

Editorial Assistant

Kyle R. Bagin

Communications Advisor

Stephanie Saunders Fouch

Change of Address

For address changes, contact LaToya Casteel, Member Services Manager, at lcasteel@aacp.org. ©2021 by the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy. All rights reserved. Content may not be reprinted without prior written permission.

Art Director

Tricia Gordon Digital Designer

Sean Clark

AACP’s Professional Supporter Program

Freelance Writer

Joseph Cantlupe

Promotion Supporter

Freelance Writer

Emily Jacobs

Freelance Writer

Athena Ponushis

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Volume 14 2021 Issue 1

@AACPharmacy a look inside

community impact

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UHSP Pharmaceutical and Administrative Sciences Chair Receives $1.2 Million FDA Contract for Generic Drug Research

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Reaching Rural America Many pharmacy schools offer rural health concentrations to train student pharmacists to care for underserved populations.

Funding will support research to create an in vitro/in silico model to accelerate generic drug product development designed for oral cavity administration.

campus connection

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Advocating for LGBTQ+ Education

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Student pharmacists have the empathy and desire to help LGBTQ+ patients. Many schools are examining their curricula to find ways to broaden their scope.

Stronger Together Pharmacy schools are finding innovative approaches to interprofessional education, collaborating with other health professions to achieve improved patient outcomes.

@AACPharmacy

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Increase Your AACP Member Engagement

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31

Session Spotlight at INclusion 2021

Call for 2021 Annual Meeting Poster Abstract Submissions

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community note publisher’s impact

Dear Colleagues: Once again, the pages of this issue of Academic Pharmacy Now are filled with testimonials to the many ways our members are not just thinking about how their graduates can fill some of the gaping holes in our healthcare system but are in ACTION addressing those gaps. Articles include programs and curricula addressing the pharmacist in the care of LGBTQ+ and rural Americans. Another article provides updates on the important work of interprofessional education to equip pharmacists as active participants and leaders in team-based care. In every case, there is a recognized need to improve care to individuals and populations, and our members are leading the way.

I write this on February 16, 2021. This is the 11-month anniversary of the rapid pivot that so many—including AACP members and staff—made in 2020 when remote work and education mandates affected our normal routines. It has been so very taxing on everyone to sustain the pace the pandemic has demanded of all of us, whether essential health workers on the frontlines or those, like me, whose work can be done remotely in the relative safety of our own homes.

The stories in this issue of Academic Pharmacy Now, plus the positive media attention that has shone a bright light on the work that our members and your graduates are doing to increase accessibility of COVID-19 vaccines, lift my spirits dramatically.

There can be little doubt that pharmacists are essential to high-quality, accessible and equitable care. AACP’s efforts, in partnership with our pharmacy association colleagues in state and national associations, are laser focused on activities that will expand opportunities for pharmacists to work at the top of their education in sustainable patient care practices that are welcomed by patients and other healthcare providers as well.

One such partnership that AACP and many members have actively engaged in since before the pandemic is the Get the Medications Right Institute (GTMRx). AACP’s Board of Directors made a significant financial commitment to launch GTMRx in 2019, serving at the Executive Level. It is noteworthy that both the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists and the American College of Clinical Pharmacy are founding members of this alliance and serve on the GTMRx Board.

Katie Capps, GTMRx co-founder, recently published a blog post on priorities for the Biden administration to improve medication management. GTMRx and the whole profession want to see comprehensive medication management become mainstream in healthcare in all settings where pharmacists practice, serve and lead—especially in places with health inequities and disparities we can no longer ignore.

Stay safe, stay healthy and stay sane. Your pharmacist will soon have a COVID vaccine for you!

Sincerely,

Lucinda L. Maine, Ph.D., R.Ph. CEO and Publisher http://bit.ly/MedMgmtReform

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community impact

UHSP Pharmaceutical and Administrative Sciences Chair Receives $1.2 Million FDA Contract for Generic Drug Research Funding will support research to create an in vitro/in silico model to accelerate generic drug product development designed for oral cavity administration.

Dr. Giovanni Pauletti, Gustavus and predict drug concentrations in human Henry Pfeiffer Chair of Pharmaceutical subjects for generic formulations and Administrative Sciences, professor after administration to the oral cavity of pharmaceutics and associate dean without the use of clinical trials. of graduate studies at the University “Through in vivo studies, generic drug of Health Sciences and Pharmacy in developers measure the blood levels St. Louis (UHSP), has received a $1.2 of medications at various times in million contract from the U.S. Food real people to ensure that the generic and Drug Administration (FDA). The product is bioequivalent to the already funding will support Pauletti’s work to approved innovator product,” Pauletti develop a computational tool with the explained.

“These studies take a potential to accelerate the development significant amount of time and are very of generic forms of medications which expensive, so what we’re hoping to do are delivered through the oral cavity. is evaluate bioequivalence though other Over the past five years, Pauletti has types of studies with a combination been conducting research to examine of computer simulations informed by how in vitro systems could be used results from in vitro experiments. This in conjunction with pharmacokinetic approach will utilize mathematical modeling in drug development. equations that we would validate, and Utilizing this three-year FDA contract, these equations will provide us with Pauletti will further extend his data similar to what in vivo studies research by developing an in silico would offer. If we’re successful, this computer modeling and simulation may be a way to get certain drugs, platform with the capability to including those that can be delivered

through the oral cavity, on the market as generics without in vivo studies, which means more rapid access to generic products for patients.”

Making Medications More Readily Available Pauletti’s contract comes from the FDA’s Office of Generic Drugs, which works to ensure—through its scientific and regulatory process—that the U.S. population has access to safe, effective and high-quality generic drugs. In recent years, the organization has been particularly focused on improving physiologically based pharmacokinetic models of drug absorption via complex routes of delivery, including administration via the oral cavity, nose, eye and lungs.

Most drug development outside of the United States focuses on generics, since this requires fewer resources, Pauletti pointed out. Rather than performing

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community impact

“Our tool is designed to allow for the optimization of drug formulations for rapid onset or limited absorption out of the oral cavity, depending on a patient’s needs. This is important as the FDA works to achieve its goal of making safe and effective generic medications more readily available to the public.”

—Dr. Giovanni Pauletti

extensive clinical trials to determine the safety of existing drugs, generics researchers can rely on information gathered from other countries and scientists. This enables development of a generic version for the local market faster and cheaper. Depending on where the generic development is taking place, it may be the only opportunity that patients have to gain access to certain effective medications.

In contrast, many companies based in the United States invest more resources for new drug development over generics. While patients benefit from the discovery of novel therapeutics, new drug development is a costly endeavor that many countries cannot afford.

“Oral cavity drug delivery continues to gain interest as an alternative to the conventional oral route of administration because of the enhanced drug absorption qualities it offers and its benefits for pediatric patients and those who are unable to swallow tablets,” Pauletti said. “This also includes fast dissolving pain medications that can carry a significant risk of abuse. Our tool is designed to allow for the optimization of drug formulations for rapid onset or limited absorption out of the oral cavity,

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depending on a patient’s needs. This is important as the FDA works to achieve its goal of making safe and effective generic medications more readily available to the public.”

Pauletti’s research is being aided

by GastroPlus®’s physiologically based pharmacokinetic modeling platform from the software company Simulations Plus Inc. GastroPlus® is a mechanistically based simulation software package that simulates intravenous, oral, oral cavity, ocular, inhalation, dermal, subcutaneous, and intramuscular absorption, biopharmaceutics, pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics in humans and animals. Currently, Simulations Plus Inc. is the only company with a computational model for absorption of drugs in the oral cavity.

decisions on whether the formulations meet the criteria and level of similarity the FDA wants for generic drugs,” he said. “We are excited to initiate this FDA-funded project in collaboration with our colleagues at Simulations Plus. The value of this partnership between academia and industry lies in its potential to accelerate translation of innovative discoveries into tangible patient benefits.”

Partnering to Facilitate Interactions

“This project is a combination of pharmaceutical sciences and engineering, but at the end of the day, it’s all designed to benefit the patient,” Pauletti explained. “We’re not making new molecules, we’re just learning how to deal with existing molecules in a more effective way, and this tool helps accelerate the process.” Pauletti’s Using this novel simulation tool that research efforts are now underway and is informed by results from in vitro will continue until September 2023. His experiments, Pauletti said researchers team is currently working to develop involved in generic development will the system to compare computational be able to assess what needs to be predictions with real lab-generated fine-tuned in the drug formulation data and information from clinical to create drug profiles that are most trials. This will assure the researchers similar to the approved reference listed that their predictions about a drug drug. “Our tool offers a standardized are appropriate for humans. At press process for measuring generic drug time, his team was initiating the early formulations and can help inform

community impact

laboratory experiments that will take six to nine months. The researchers are also developing technology to help transfer data into their computational predictions.

“What we hope to do is facilitate the interaction between the agencies and researchers,” Pauletti noted. “The idea is to provide researchers that developed generics with a tool that could help them to really assess some of their new formulations for generics, ahead of clinical trials. We have started to develop a consortium of different companies that are focusing on the development of generics to best understand what their needs are and how we can help. The final product that is developed under this contract will be really meaningful for both FDA as well

as the end users in the companies that develop generics.”

Pauletti’s team includes student pharmacists in addition to seasoned researchers. While the COVID-19 pandemic has added complications to the process and restricted who can enter the laboratory, Pauletti noted that student pharmacists have been helping on the computational side of his research. This gives students hands-on experience with pharmacokinetics and the use of computer and simulation tools. “That helps them to gain insight into the contemporary pharmaceutical research component, and also provides them with opportunities to explore some of their future career paths, which for pharmacy is quite diverse,” he said. “We teach them pretty much the

clinical routes, but the tools that they learn are certainly applicable also for industrial or research and development career paths.”

In addition to his role at UHSP, Pauletti is also a member of the International Pharmaceutical Federation (FIP). Pauletti has served in numerous roles at FIP since his years as a student in Switzerland. He is currently serving his second fouryear term as the scientific secretary, a member of the cabinet who advises the president of FIP on all scientific affairs relevant to pharmacy and pharmaceutical sciences. P Reprinted with permission from the University of Health Sciences and Pharmacy in St. Louis.

Additional reporting by Emily Jacobs, a freelance writer based in Toledo, Ohio.

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community impact

Reaching Rural America Many pharmacy schools offer rural health concentrations to train student pharmacists to care for underserved populations.

By Joseph A. Cantlupe

In the heart of Appalachia, better, more accessible healthcare is needed for populations beset by higher poverty and disease rates than in other parts of the country. The leaders of East Tennessee State University (ETSU) Bill Gatton College of Pharmacy say they embrace this evolving challenge and want to pursue a commitment in the place they call home. “We’re right in the thick of Appalachia, and we focus on the rural and undeserved and improve lives of people in this region,” said Dr. Debbie C. Byrd, dean of the college of pharmacy, which is located in the South Central Appalachian region.

“One of the things that is unique is that we are attracting students from this geographic region and students are committed to this community and want to go back to the community to study and serve,” said Dr. Ralph Lugo, founding chair of the Department of Pharmacy Practice. “At ETSU, there has been a long history with the medical school of a rural primary care track that trains healthcare providers in this region.”

Filling a Need While Chicago may be one of the biggest cities in America, its suburbs flow quickly into rural parts of Illinois. The University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) College of Pharmacy has embraced rural pharmacy education at its campus 90 miles away in Rockford with rural pharmacy education program (RPHARM), part of the University’s National Center for Rural Health. Student pharmacists complete a concentration in rural pharmacy services, said Dr. Kevin O. Rynn, clinical professor and vice dean at the College of Pharmacy. Twenty percent of the student body is enrolled and about 60 percent of graduates with the rural pharmacy concentration practice in a rural community. In many cases, “they may be the only healthcare provider in the community, so they have to be a healthcare leader and step up to the challenge,” he said.

Rural Americans, who make up at least 15 to 20 percent of the U.S. population, face inequities that result in worse healthcare outcomes than that of urban and suburban residents. The rural health disparities, reflected in Appalachia, “are rooted in economic, social, racial, ethnic, geographic and health workforce factors,” according to the university. The healthcare challenges include lack of access to care, with fewer local doctors, and more remote locations.

In Des Moines, Drake University’s College of Pharmacy & Health Sciences offers a Rural Health Initiative Program, an interprofessional certificate program designed to enable students to understand the value of and nuances faced by healthcare practitioners in rural settings, said Dr. Renae Chesnut, dean and professor. The pharmacy program also continues to have students complete experiential rotations in rural settings. “The pandemic has changed a lot of things,” Chesnut said, “but our students are still going to rural settings for their experiential education, practicing in pharmacies and hospitals that are open to serve their communities.”

With these deficits in mind, pharmacy schools believe that they can help bridge those healthcare gaps, and universities such as ETSU are taking steps to broaden their academic reach to bring in student pharmacists to focus on the specific needs of the communities. Other pharmacy schools are also bolstering their educational programs, including those in bigger communities that border rural areas. The result has been a keen interest among students, more of whom are drawn to the rural healthcare offerings that are constantly expanding.

These programs are becoming more popular and are attracting more students, with a focus on interprofessional teams drawn from other health profession schools, specifically eyeing the gap in care that the pharmacists can fill in rural communities. Over the past two years, ETSU’s College of Pharmacy has expanded its rural curricula under a rural health initiative strategic plan that specifically targets improved coordination among the academic community, hospitals and healthcare providers in the area.

The idea, according to the school’s educators, is to nurture

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community impact

An ETSU student pharmacist administers the COVID-19 vaccine at Johnson City Medical Center, Ballad Health, in Tennessee.

progressive, team-oriented pharmacists while improving healthcare in rural and underserved communities.

One of the school’s top initiatives is a partnership with Remote Area Medical (RAM) that allows student pharmacists to work with other healthcare professionals to provide care for patients. This care includes documenting medical histories, performing health screenings, providing education and helping patients navigate vision or dental care needs that they may have neglected. “Ninety percent of the U.S. population lives within five miles of a pharmacy,” said Dr. Emily Flores, associate professor of pharmacy practice.

“The accessibility of a pharmacist is there. We’re trying to get our pharmacy students to help bridge gaps in rural healthcare and the disparities that exist.”

Since ETSU initiated the program, students have increasingly served hundreds of hours in rural underserved areas, she said. Even dealing with COVID-19 this past

year, “our students served over 900 hours—and that’s just what they logged, they probably did more,” Flores said.

“We’re making strategic partnerships and more specialized opportunities for students. All of our students have a set of competencies that they should achieve for rural care.”

About 97 percent of the pharmacy school’s APPE students completed at least “one rural and/or underserved experience” in 2019-20, Flores and her colleagues wrote in a poster describing the program. Each student completes a rural service IPPE of at least two hours in each of the first three years. Through its diverse programs, which include 15 health professional degrees within the school’s Academic Health Sciences Center, “we have an environment that expects collaboration,” said Dr. Brian Cross, associate professor and vice chair in the Department of Pharmacy Practice and associate professor in the Department of Family Medicine at the James H. Quillen College of Medicine.

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community impact

Despite COVID-19, “we’re still committed to the rural healthcare settings. The pharmacies and critical access hospitals in these rural areas are important partners for our educational programs.” ­—Dr. Renae Chesnut

A Commitment to Underserved Communities A national pipeline is growing to develop educational programs in rural America. The Area Health Education Centers (AHEC) work to train students and healthcare professionals in locations across the country, while developing healthcare workers in the nation’s rural and underserved populations, according to Dwain Harris, CEO of the National AHEC Organization.

In 2018 the AHEC Scholars Program was introduced in AHECs across the country, creating a large cohort of health professions and students becoming more prepared to care for rural and urban underserved patients in small interprofessional teams. “AHEC Scholars provides students with the opportunity to go above and beyond, equipping themselves with added knowledge and training ultimately to be better at what they do and to be more responsive to patients in rural and underserved healthcare settings,” Harris said. It’s important that students interact with many disciplines, and “cultural competency is another hallmark of the program.”

There are AHECs in 300 locations in 46 states and each state has an AHEC program office that is typically housed in a university medical school with regional AHECs that cover the state, Harris said. The regional AHEC centers “are a connection between the academic institutions and their rural communities,” “The opportunity to train and interact, for example, with students in other disciplines provide them with a more inhe noted. depth understanding of the advantages of a team approach The National AHEC Organization, developed by Congress in to healthcare,” he continued. “Through their training, AHEC 1971 to recruit, train and retain health profession workforce Scholars are likely to gain insights into health disparities and members committed to underserved populations, serves more understand how health status may be affected by culture, race than 85 of the nation’s counties. “The advantage of AHEC or socioeconomic status.” continuing education is that it is typically designed to respond to the local communities served by the AHEC,” Harris explained.

In each area—such as Harris’s home base in southern Kentucky, which has a high rate of heart disease—“AHECs can provide education that is more specific to that area, perhaps delivered by a local or regional cardiologist,” he continued. “These events also allow for local informal networking among providers, decreasing the sense of isolation some providers may be experiencing when working in rural or remote areas.”

AHEC Scholars is a two-year longitudinal program that provides 80 hours per year of supplemental education to health professional students from multiple disciplines. “All experiential or clinical training must be conducted in rural and/ or underserved settings,” he added.

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In October, six student pharmacists from the East Tennessee State University Bill Gatton College of Pharmacy were accepted into the Tennessee AHEC Scholars Program. “We are so proud of these students for earning this honor,” said Dr. Debbie Byrd, Gatton College of Pharmacy dean, in a statement. “The AHEC Scholars Program is directly in line with our values and mission at the college to prepare progressive, team-oriented pharmacists who improve healthcare, focusing on rural and underserved communities. I look forward to seeing the impact these students make in their pharmacy careers in the Appalachian Highlands and beyond.”

Learn more: www.nationalahec.org

community impact

“We prepare the students to be service leaders in their communities.

Some of these students want to return to their home communities.

Others want to serve underserved populations and without this program they don’t really know how to get started—the program teaches them to make the connections possible.” ­—Dr. Kevin O. Rynn

Cross also helped establish a program with his wife, Dr. Patricia Amadio, a professor at the medical school, to carry out a “grassroots initiative from the students” to help the homeless population get flu shots and clothing, as well as prepare for COVID-19 vaccinations as they become available. “We need to be on the front line with our team. That’s not to say we are cavalier and do not protect our students and ourselves,” Cross added. “For us to go into a bunker and wait for COVID-19 to be over would mean that we had an opportunity to help and we did not.”

Dr. Jessica Robinson, assistant professor, pharmacy practice, a member of the college’s community pharmacy initiative, said she knows firsthand the contributions that ETSU is delivering to the rural environment and the potential it offers students. “I was a student here and I was from a rural area,” Robinson said. “I don’t know if I would have gone to pharmacy school if this college wasn’t here for me at the time. I couldn’t imagine practicing anywhere else other than with the folks who got me where I am today.”

While more highly populated areas have seen more chains, South Central Appalachia has a greater concentration of independent pharmacies, which offers additional opportunities for community-based innovations as well as hands-on learning. Through the college’s participation in the Flip the Pharmacy grant program (Community Pharmacy Foundation, 2019), Robinson and other faculty, along with students, work with more than 120 pharmacies to evaluate their business and clinical workflow and provide ongoing support to help pharmacies meet their unique business, social and demographic needs, she said.

As part of their pharmacy education, students participate in nine monthlong rotations during their APPE year, many of which are in rural communities, “which gives them the skills they need to jump into that environment when they

graduate,” said Dr. Susie Crowe, director of experiential education. That experience not only encompasses the work of community pharmacies, but also in hospitals, ambulatory care settings and primary care, all within the rural environment, Crowe said. “If a career in a rural setting is something [students] want to pursue, then they have plenty of opportunities to develop and practice those skills while on APPEs.” As the school develops its programs, it also is focusing on research to evaluate how patients are impacted by rural healthcare teams, said Dr. Karilynn DowlingMcClay, assistant professor of pharmacy practice. A major multidisciplinary effort is examining “the intersection of health policy and care, including pharmacy-based care, through the newly formed Rural Health Equity Research Center, a collaboration among the ETSU Addiction Science Center, the ETSU Center for Rural Health Research and the NORC Walsh Center for Rural Health Analysis,” she said.

It Takes a Team Having academic programs that involve pharmacy practice along with other professions is standard in much of the work at ETSU and also is reflected in programs at the University of Illinois Chicago and Drake University. Giving student pharmacists the opportunity to work interprofessionally with medical and nursing students is paramount in UIC’s rural health professions program, said Rynn, the vice dean.

During their four years in the program, they complete a rural community capstone project with a medical student partner.

In early years pharmacy, nursing and medical students learn together how to conduct a needs assessment and work with local community organizations, hospitals, clinicians and community leaders to develop their project. The RPHARM program culminates with students spending 18 weeks on three APPE rotations in a rural community. During this time, they work with their medical student partner to implement

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UIC’s rural health professions program includes a “no harm on the farm” visit to a farm to allow students to discuss potential emergencies with first responders and farmers.

and measure the outcomes of their project, later presenting results at the campuses research day.

“We prepare the students to be service leaders in their communities,” Rynn said. “Some of these students want to return to their home communities. Others want to serve underserved populations and without this program they don’t really know how to get started—the program teaches them to make the connections possible.” Part of UIC’s program includes a “no harm on the farm” visit to a farm where students discuss with first responders and farmers potential emergency situations that pharmacists and other health professionals may encounter, whether it’s “a pesticide exposure, tractor rollovers or grain bin entrapment,” Rynn said.

Even though Drake University doesn’t have its own medical school, the school partners with other institutions in the area

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so student pharmacists and occupational therapy students can work with doctors of osteopathic medicine, in addition to physician assistants, and physical therapy students through the Rural Health Initiative Program. Students can complete one year of the program or continue to a second year to earn the Rural Health Initiative Program Certificate.

The program includes didactic coursework with hands-on interactive group work and site visits to healthcare practices in rural communities.

The Rural Health Initiative Program has been an option available to student pharmacists at Drake for the past five years. More than 30 students have finished the program, and the school expects even more interest. Despite COVID-19, “we’re still committed to the rural healthcare settings,” Chesnut said. “The pharmacies and critical access hospitals

community impact

Student pharmacists at UIC spend 18 weeks on three APPE rotations in a rural community.

in these rural areas are important partners for our educational programs.” Drake is expanding its rural healthcare education opportunities in the pharmacy program, she said.

Among those is “Cultivate,” a high school internship program that seeks to heighten interest in the pharmacy field.

At ETSU, the community expressed a need and desire for a pharmacy school more than 15 years ago, said Byrd. In 2004, the nearest pharmacy school in the state was more than 500 miles away and there were calls in the community to have its own. The state wasn’t willing to fund one—but then-Gov. Phil Bredesen offered a challenge. He said if the community and region could raise $5 million in 90 days, they could have their school. “I think it was meant to be the end of the story, but this is a group of people up for a challenge,” Byrd recalled. With many people just donating dollar bills at local grocery store collections, the

community raised more than $5 million in 58 days, setting the stage for the Gatton College of Pharmacy. “We feel a sense of responsibility to this community,” Byrd said. “We wouldn’t be here without them.” P Joseph A. Cantlupe is a freelance writer based in Washington, D.C.

Read More on Rural Health For more coverage of rural health initiatives, including information about the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Pharmacy Rural Pharmacy Practice concentration, visit www.aacp. org/article/care-encompasses-every-community

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campus connection

Advocating for LGBTQ+ Education Student pharmacists have the empathy and desire to help LGBTQ+ patients. Many schools are examining their curricula to find ways to broaden their scope.

By Athena Ponushis LGBTQ+ people face an array of health disparities. They are at higher risk of having anxiety, depression, mental illness and substance use disorder. They are more likely to struggle with poverty and isolation. They are more likely to contemplate and attempt suicide. These challenges are consistent across the LGBTQ+ population, yet pharmacy school curricula are inconsistent, and the approaches to educating future pharmacists on LGBTQ+ issues differ drastically among institutions.

A cross-sectional survey recently published in Currents in Pharmacy Teaching and Learning shows how transgenderrelated care is taught to variable degrees in Pharm.D. programs: A little more than half the schools surveyed reported transgender-related care was currently addressed somewhere within the curriculum, yet only half the respondents felt confident that their graduating pharmacists would be competent in providing care to transgender patients.

Most responding schools teach only one or two hours of transgender-related care in their entire curriculum, and the schools that do not presently teach it

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have no plans to incorporate additional courses.

Dr. Cheyenne Newsome, coauthor of the research paper and assistant professor of pharmacotherapy at Washington State University College of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, expected that some schools would not include this content at all. But when she saw the results—nearly 50 percent of schools do not teach transgenderrelated care and have no interest in doing so even after taking the survey and thinking on the matter—she was disappointed. “That’s creating so many graduates who have no exposure to learning about how to care for trans people, so even if they have the best of intentions, they are not equipped with the knowledge and skills to provide good care,” Newsome said.

LGBTQ+ content may not yet be required in the Pharm.D. curriculum and some schools may decide not to include it, but students are keen to learn how to care for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning/ queer individuals. Faculty who have introduced LGBTQ+ content into their

courses report that students welcome the topic, are active and engaged in discussions and eager to learn more.

Additional research papers, all as candid and compelling as the crosssectional survey, have sounded a call to action for LGBTQ+ content to be required and customary so future pharmacists can help improve health outcomes for individuals who, having been repeatedly mistreated when seeking care, do not seek medical attention when they need it most.

Fulfilling an Oath How can pharmacists best serve LGBTQ+ people? A recent American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education article title sums it up: “The Pharmacist as an LGBTQ Ally.” The article defines an ally as one whose purpose is to help, to provide support and assistance in an ongoing effort or struggle. The commentary argues that most colleges of pharmacy are not well equipped to teach future pharmacists how to counsel LGBTQ+ individuals, while it reiterates the oath of a pharmacist, to “consider the welfare of humanity and relief of suffering my primary concerns.”

campus connection

“When students hear from an individual who has had a bad experience or a good experience, they begin to understand the impact they can make by being a trans-competent provider. It helps them see why it’s important to learn this material and it helps them feel more comfortable and confident stepping up to be a good provider.” ­—Dr. Cheyenne Newsome Dr. Oliver Grundmann, lead author of the article and clinical associate professor at the University of Florida College of Pharmacy, sees a deeper meaning in educating future pharmacists to serve LGBTQ+ people beyond that oath. The LGBTQ+ community, like many other minority communities, needs allies in healthcare who can understand their specific needs and give them credence.

“We see a pattern that kind of projects out in life, if LGBTQ folks experience rejection early on, or they are not supported by their family, by their friends, not accepted for being as they are,” Grundmann said, “they tend to have higher rates of depression and anxiety, homelessness, especially with LGBTQ+ youth, mental health problems and substance use disorders that may start early in life, and subsequent consequences related to stress or obesity accompanied by an eating disorder. This is a particular area where pharmacists can provide advice to caregivers or to youth as they struggle with such disorders.

And it’s important to be mindful when counseling older LGBTQ folks

that, throughout their life span, they may have suffered and continue to suffer discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender expression.”

Grundmann believes pharmacists may be uniquely positioned to connect with LGBTQ+ people and inspire the patient engagement needed to attain optimal health. “In order to see a pharmacist, you do not need to make an appointment, you do not need to present health insurance, you do not need a prescription, you just need to go to a pharmacy, go to the counter and say, ‘I would like to talk with a pharmacist,’” he pointed out.

“I realize that currently pharmacies are not compensated appropriately for offering this service, but I think there is a model where we can say it is a compassionate, human service, as the oath of pharmacy states, we serve humanity and all of humanity, to make sure everyone is cared for and to ensure the health of all human beings.”

Passionate about LGBTQ+ issues for professional and personal reasons, Grundmann came out as a gay male at the age of 17. After graduating from

pharmacy school, he moved to the United States from Germany in 2004 to start his graduate studies at UF where he met his partner. The two were married in 2015 and are now raising two daughters. Grundmann has seen his students share his passion for LGBTQ+ issues. When he first held an active learning session on how to be more inclusive in a pharmacy environment and more welcoming of LGBTQ+ community members, the conversations he had with his secondyear Pharm.D. students were lively.

“They showed their interest not only from a professional perspective, but they showed that they truly cared.

They wanted to know more about this topic, and that was encouraging. I saw this passion that I personally had reflected in the passion my students have for this topic. It was already there, it just needed to be kindled or tended to,” Grundmann said. “We did not have enough time during the active learning session and quite a few students came to me afterward to say it was a great session and they wanted to continue the discussion.”

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“This is a particular area where pharmacists can provide advice to caregivers or to youth as they struggle with [substance use or eating] disorders. And it’s important to be mindful when counseling older LGBTQ folks that, throughout their life span, they may have suffered and continue to suffer discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender expression.” ­—Dr. Oliver Grundmann

A Critical Takeaway When Newsome joined the faculty at WSU a few years ago, she began teaching three hours of transgender care in a required course. She taught the terminology and pharmacotherapy of transgender care, elaborating on patient interaction and pronoun etiquette.

Other faculty members took notice and followed suit, creatively weaving LGBTQ+ content into their courses.

can make a difference. Newsome’s students rank discussion with a guest speaker as the thing that has helped them the most. Newsome noted that when schools bring in a respectable community member who is transgender, students are able to hear a personal story and make a connection that opens their eyes and inspires them to care for LGBTQ+ individuals. That’s what Newsome believes students need to know most: the impact they can make.

LGBTQ-specific cases, during active learning sessions. “When we talk about hormone therapy, we talk about transgender patients. When we talk about the different stages of aging, we include either a lesbian woman or gay male, maybe in a case relating to prostate cancer, but we don’t want to stereotype here, we don’t want to bring out a gay male case when it comes to HIV/AIDS. We want to be diverse in that as well,” Grundmann said.

Last year Newsome added a case study “My guest speaker has had good experiHe would like to see a more holistic on masculine hormone therapy for ences with pharmacy and bad experiapproach to the pharmacy curriculum trans masculine individuals to the ences with pharmacy. He shares the that underscores that a person’s sexual men’s health session in the P3 year. It experiences his trans friends have had orientation or gender expression— serves as a refresher for students and with healthcare professionals, too,” she while only one element that defines gives them the opportunity to ask more said. “When students hear from an someone’s identity—may impact daily questions. In the fall she expanded individual who has had a bad experilife and well-being. And when it comes on cancer screening discussions in ence or a good experience, they begin to to LGBTQ+ issues, he would like prothe oncology block, describing how understand the impact they can make grams to look at the social, economic easily cancer screenings can be missed by being a trans-competent provider.

It and medical disparities that jeopardize in trans people, how a person who helps them see why it’s important to the long-term health of this population. presents as male may have a cervix and learn this material and it helps them “What I want to see is that LGBTQ+ need a Pap smear. Her fellow faculty feel more comfortable and confident issues are consistent throughout the members added a two-hour lab session stepping up to be a good provider. curriculum, that we do not only look at to the first-year communications Obviously, the medications are imporit in one course and then make a checkcourse on gender minorities, focusing tant, but they are not complicated and mark, because it really stretches from on women and trans people. They that information is readily available. medication care to health insurance plan to add a transgender case to Pharmacists are good at looking things coverage to inequities in disadvantaged the applied patient care lab in the up, so I think the key piece is helping areas, depending on where you live,” spring, where students will identify students build that empathy and desire Grundmann emphasized. “There are pharmacotherapy-related concerns as to help trans people.” many different factors that impact a they work through the patient case. person. We need to be aware of that But what has had the greatest impact on UF has also modernized its Pharm.D. and think about how we as pharmacists curriculum, increasing the number students has been facilitating opportucan provide overall care to patients.” of diverse case studies, including nities for them to see how pharmacists

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The First Step Before pharmacists can provide holistic care, they must create an environment where LGBTQ+ patients feel comfortable, safe, welcome and affirmed. “Sexual gender minorities face health disparities in every arena of life, whether it’s related to substance use disorders or just access to care. Those disparities are real and prevalent,” said Dr. Kyle Melin, associate professor at the University of Puerto Rico School of Pharmacy. “Until we as a profession learn how to create an environment where LGBTQ individuals feel safe and welcome in our healthcare settings, we are not going to be able to address their healthcare needs and those disparities which come out of those needs. Until we undo that barrier and create an environment where they feel safe and respected, we are not going to be able to help people the way we want to.”

not resigned to things being the way they are and they have this sense of, ‘We can make things better,’ and they inspire us to do that.”

prepare our pharmacists to understand the unique needs and disparities faced by transgender and gender nonbinary individuals.”

Melin’s research and work with students led to a study assessing readiness to provide pharmaceutical care to transgender patients, gleaning perspectives from pharmacists and transgender individuals, that was published in the Journal of the American Pharmacists Association. The study found that pharmacists were aware of their knowledge deficits when it comes to providing care for transgender patients and that they were open to receiving training and education. He and his students worked on providing a continuing education program, published in Pharmacy Practice, and once again found that pharmacists were eager to improve.

The American College of Clinical Pharmacy updated its pharmacotherapy didactic curriculum toolkit in 2019, categorizing what topics should be covered into three tiers. (Tier 1: Students must be taught this in therapeutics courses.

Tier 2: If there’s time, it would be good to include. Tier 3: Students are responsible for learning this on their own.) Gender affirming care was added to the toolkit in 2019 as a Tier 3, listed as not necessary to include in therapeutics courses. Newsome sees that as a step in the right direction, that transgender-related care is starting to appear on the radar, but fears people still do not understand its importance.

Melin also found that despite what pharmacists did not know, transgender patients still believed pharmacists could play an important role in their healthcare. “In conversations with transgender individuals there was this sense that, pharmacists know about medications and I am taking different medications and they can help me, even if they don’t know about pronouns or don’t understand my identity or understand how I would prefer to be spoken to, they can help me,” Melin said.

At the University of Puerto Rico, the majority of LGBTQ+ education has centered on cultivating such cultural competency. Melin is working on ways to incorporate LGBTQ+ issues into the therapeutics curriculum, particularly concerning transgender and gender nonbinary patient care, improving instruction relating to hormone therapy and gender affirming therapy to better build the capacity of pharmacists.

While Melin has not seen much movement at any official level to accredit LGBTQ+ content as a national stanOne distinction that Melin and dard, he has seen movement among Newsome point out: Within the students. Students are seeking out this LGBTQ community, individuals have content and training and have identidifferent needs. “We say LGBT all fied it as an area that they want to work the time, but the T is kind of this on to be better prepared as pharmaadd-on, like they’re included in this cists to provide care for all patients. catch-all umbrella of LGBT, but it’s “The students have been incredibly a subpopulation that’s really been positive and highly motivated. They are neglected or overlooked even within really helping to push the profession the lens of LGBT work,” Melin said. forward,” Melin noted. “That’s why I “There’s so much more we have to do as like working with students—they have a society and as a profession as well to

“If you’re not teaching it, I guess one of the assumptions I make is you don’t think it’s important enough to teach, so I always try to emphasize the risks of graduating pharmacists who are not competent to care for the LGBTQ community,” Newsome explained.

“What are the risks of those microaggressions that patients continually face? What does that add up to? The suicide attempt rate for people who are transgender is nine times higher than the general population. Part of what I think leads to that is the mistreatment from medical providers and the lack of trust there, so I try to emphasize the importance of this education and the risks of putting providers out there who are not equipped to help care for this vulnerable population. They can do harm, and that’s not what we want to do.” P Athena Ponushis is a freelance writer based in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.

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Stronger

Together

Pharmacy schools are finding innovative approaches to interprofessional education, collaborating with other health professions to achieve improved patient outcomes.

By Jane E. Rooney

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“Imagine a typical patient suffering from chronic pain. That person is dealing with multiple health professionals—sometimes up to 10 or 12 over time. Do they talk to each other? The answer typically is no. What patients are now dealing with is a highly truncated system in which information is not always shared and they get multiple pieces of advice,” said Dr. Frank Ascione, director, University of Michigan Center for Interprofessional Education (IPE), and former dean of the college of pharmacy.

Enter interprofessional education, which helps provide patients with a more coordinated approach to care and more efficient use of resources, he said, noting “the hope is that IPE leads to more satisfaction, more efficiency and healthier outcomes.” The World Health Organization defines IPE as occurring “when students from two or more professions learn about, from, and with each other to enable effective collaboration and improve health outcomes.” (“Learners” is now being used rather than students, to include clinicians and practicing health professionals.) Every pharmacy school must include IPE as part of ACPE accreditation standards. The Interprofessional Education Collaborative (IPEC), which represents 21 national health profession education associations— pharmacy among the original six professions included— developed the core competencies that pharmacy schools use to fulfill accreditation requirements.

“We know that teams impact outcomes if they are deployed properly and supported in the environment in which they work,” said Dr. Barbara Brandt, director, National Center for Interprofessional Practice and Education and professor in the College of Pharmacy at the University of Minnesota. “There’s a real need for educating health professionals as well as non-health professionals who they work with in the same setting to improve health outcomes. AACP being part of the IPEC group is absolutely critical in driving that conversation.”

Pharmacy has proven to be a trailblazer in IPE and has strong leadership compared to other health professions, Brandt continued, because it was one of the first to have robust accreditation standards back in the early 2000s. “There are a lot of pharmacy faculty members who have deep experience because they have been held accountable for a number of years so they are being

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tapped as leaders,” she said. “The visible leadership at some of these institutions is incredible. They are engaging physicians and other health professions across the board.”

Examples of innovations in IPE—some driven by the need to change course during the pandemic—are plentiful at pharmacy schools across the country. As the need for collaboration among health professionals increases, schools are adapting and exploring new ways to expose student pharmacists to IPE opportunities.

Understanding Other Disciplines The University of Michigan Center for IPE came to fruition in 2015 thanks to support and funding from the administration and faculty buy-in. As Ascione was stepping down as dean of the college of pharmacy, faculty returning from an IPEC conference expressed enthusiasm for developing a team-based clinical decision-making course.

Ascione asked for and received support from the deans and provost to lead an IPE center. “I recognized that we had this grassroots movement so I saw the support for it was there. At the same time, the university was engaged in a third century funding grant, so there was money available for a [$3 million] transitional grant,” he said.

“Pharmacy is ideal in terms of engaging in [IPE]. We’re inherently a team-based profession. We practice across the whole healthcare span, from the institutional to the community setting. In terms of addressing healthcare problems, we’re in an ideal spot to do something.

It would be difficult to engage in the interprofessional movement without pharmacy involved.”

The Center takes a menu-based approach with its IPE offerings. “One big premise is, how can you learn about what someone does if you don’t know anything about

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“We as an Academy are proud that pharmacy is one of the drivers of IPE thanks to our aggressive accreditation standards. Hopefully faculty champions can use this report to continue to drive change, which will better position IPE within their organization.” ­—Dr. Sarah Shrader

them? We provide an opportunity to learn about the backgrounds of other professions. That’s the basis for anything else. You need to know the expertise of other people you’re working with,” he emphasized, adding that engaging in team-based behavior is a necessity at Michigan, which has 14 disciplines involved in IPE. Students must interact with at least one other profession, and being a large and diverse school offers advantages in terms of broader IPE experiences.

“We offer a course on global health run by the business school. There is another one on trauma through the schools of education, nursing and social work. It explores various trauma among health educators, children and other groups. It looks at broader aspects of society.

We’re also doing some technological innovations with simulations and clinical experiences.” Student pharmacists must look beyond simply focusing on medications to be part of a team, he noted.

“When you are looking at a skill set, it isn’t just the technical aspects of drug products,” Ascione continued. “It is learning to transmit that information to a team and giving appropriate advice. Unless pharmacists are sensitive to the perspectives of other professions, they may be too narrow in their approach and less effective team members.”

At Texas Southern University College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, IPE is interwoven through the curriculum in a didactic setting in the first, third and fourth years, with an experiential focus in the second year. All first-year students take a communications lab, according to Dr. Portia Davis, interim executive director, Division of Interprofessional Practice and Simulation, and associate professor of pharmacy practice, and participate in interprofessional work sessions with students in disci-

plines such as respiratory therapy nursing and health administration. “Students work to disclose a medication error to a patient’s family as a result of a communications failure,” Davis explained.

“In the spring of the first year, students are enrolled in an ethics course, which they take at the same time with clinical lab sciences students, respiratory therapy students and others,” she continued. “That course features ethical problem solving with clinical vignettes.

It includes panel discussions and active learning. In the second and third years, we try to pair students in our community settings on their rotations with students from one of our local teaching hospital systems. Sometimes it works well but sometimes scheduling logistics with medical students doesn’t work for all students.

They work together under the supervision of both clinical pharmacists and physicians in chronic disease state clinics to create care plans.”

As part of their cocurricular activities, third-year students attend a large-scale interprofessional event at the University of Texas Medical Branch. Davis said that the event, which involves at least 14 disciplines, explores a patient case surrounding a high school athlete who becomes septic and has complications requiring amputations. Social and administrative sciences as well as underrepresented disciplines such as medical humanities are included. “Our students are always well received and come back thankful to hear how much it opens others’ eyes to what pharmacists can do,” she said. “That event seems to be their most memorable experience.”

The college of pharmacy’s largest event—a simulation case for fourth-year students that uses high-fidelity mannequins—aims to incorporate all disciplines. Students work together to document and work through a plan

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for patient care; a student-led debriefing includes guest facilitators. Davis said she is committed to adding more layers to the current IPE experience.

Faculty underwent facilitator training for a poverty simulation just before the pandemic. The plan is to offer a virtual session later this year but Davis hopes it will become an annual event. “While what we’ve done has been impactful, I don’t think it’s been enough,” she noted. “With everyone being forced to work remotely due to COVID-19, some of the barriers have been eliminated so we want to expand upon what we currently offer.”

Examining the IPE Landscape The American Interprofessional Health Collaborative (AIHC), the professional community of the National Center for Interprofessional Practice and Education, conducted a survey in late 2019 to increase understanding of IPE organizational models. Dr. Elena Umland, associate dean of academic affairs at the Jefferson College of Pharmacy and associate provost for interprofessional practice and education at Thomas Jefferson University, who served on the survey task force, said the goal was to answer questions such as what does the IPE organizational structure look like at different schools; how much support is coming from the administration; does it live within a particular college; is it centralized; and what contributes to the success of a program?

“We were hoping this report would lay the foundation so people can see where we’re starting from,” Umland said.

“You need the resources to deliver a high-quality IPE program. From a pharmacy perspective, institutions and colleges can use this report to say, we could be further ahead with this if we had some resources. One of the

findings had to do with the value placed on IPE relative to promotion and tenure—it’s not always explicit in our guidelines. The institutions that do [tie those together] tend to have faculty who seem more vested in participating in IPE.” Dr. Sarah Shrader, professor, University of Kansas School of Pharmacy, who led the task force and was outgoing national chair of AIHC when survey preparations began in March 2019, said the survey accomplished the goal of reporting on how IPE is organized nationally and what is happening on the ground. “Now that we have our arms around what is happening, we continue tracking it and we are starting to think about best practices,” she said.

“What is happening that is working well that we could suggest for others to follow? We’ve done some further analysis and in the manuscript that we’re trying to finish and submit, it will go a step further than the report. We will make some suggestions about best practices and how to best organize IPE based on our findings.” That document will be published later in 2021.

Shrader noted that survey results underscored the need for senior administration to have a better understanding of IPE and the resources it takes to maintain a robust program. For example, at the University of Kansas School of Pharmacy, there are at least a dozen faculty, along with pharmacy residents and students, that facilitate several IPE activities. “It is a huge undertaking.

We are fortunate to have the support of our talented faculty and pharmacy administrators. Unfortunately, this is not the case at all institutions,” she said.

“We as an Academy are proud that pharmacy is one of the drivers of IPE thanks to our aggressive accreditation

“I am hoping we really stay true to our mission to produce practice-ready graduates. You need a strong interprofessional base for this. They need to be comfortable and know their role in team-based care and be able to provide virtual patient care. They must be able to contribute to teams remotely and go above and beyond when situations require such actions.” ­—Dr. Portia Davis

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IPEC’s Mission: Enhanced Team-Based Care The Interprofessional Education Collaborative (IPEC), which represents 21 national health profession education associations, developed core competencies for interprofessional collaborative practice that pharmacy schools across the country use to fulfill ACPE accreditation requirements. The competencies are: 1.

Work with individuals of other professions to maintain a climate of mutual respect and shared values.

2.

Use the knowledge of one’s own role and those of other professions to appropriately assess and address the healthcare needs of patients and to promote and advance the health of populations.

3. Communicate with patients, families, communities and professionals in health and other fields in a responsive and responsible manner that supports a team approach to the promotion and maintenance of health and the prevention and treatment of disease.

4. Apply relationship-building values and the principles of team dynamics to perform effectively in different team roles to plan, deliver and evaluate patient/population-centered care and population health programs and policies that are safe, timely, efficient, effective and equitable.

These competencies, last updated in 2016, are being revised and an updated version will be published next year, according to Dr. Kelly Ragucci, AACP’s vice president of professional development, and liaison to IPEC’s Planning Committee. She said that in addition to offering programming that includes two institutes each year, an annual interprofessional leadership program and various webinars, IPEC also supports IPE research.

“IPEC is currently supporting a project titled ‘Leveraging the IPEC Competency Framework to Transform Health Professions Education,’” she said. “This grant is funded by the Macy Foundation and will support the development of a tool to standardize assessment of institutional progress toward IPE implementation using the IPEC framework. IPEC has always been at the forefront of these issues.” IPEC’s mission is to ensure that new and current health professionals are proficient in the competencies essential for patient-centered, community- and population-oriented, interprofessional collaborative practice.

The pandemic has further highlighted the need for IPE among health professions, Ragucci noted. “The importance of teamwork and improved communication strategies has never been more important when it comes to improving patient care,” she said. “The key is translating education to practice and assuring that health professions work together to deliver efficient, effective and equitable care. Pharmacy schools have developed unique, creative strategies when it comes to offering IPE both on campus and virtually. We need to continue to support schools and colleges in these efforts and improve mechanisms to share resources. The ultimate goal is to ensure that students enter the workforce as integral members of the collaborative practice team.”

For more information, visit www.ipecollaborative.org

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standards,” she continued. “Hopefully faculty champions can use this report to continue to drive change, which will better position IPE within their organization. In terms of areas for improvement of IPE, the majority of respondents said universities and organizations should think through including this more intentionally in promotion and tenure guidelines. So many pharmacy faculty are highly involved leaders in IPE, we want to see them getting credit for that. The other thing we saw from the data was the need to think about ways to get more faculty involved in IPE and honor the amount of time it takes. We want to make sure that the work and service on IPE committees is accounted for just like any other types of teaching commitments are within schools of pharmacy. Often what we see is people get involved because they believe so passionately in IPE, but they are not allocated the time that’s needed to develop and facilitate IPE events.”

The National Center’s Brandt said the curriculum needs to prepare student pharmacists for the clinical environment, and she is focused on the idea of flipping IPE to include collaborative practice. Shrader developed a free online course with the National Center (Nexusipe.org) that teaches how to teach in practice. “My vision for pharmacy would be to take stock of how to teach in practice,” Brandt noted. “We can do all the curriculum in the world and mapping of competencies in the classroom but if our students go into practice and they are not seeing the role models, we are really wasting our time. Pharmacy schools with other health professions need to focus on how we are going to teach collaboration in our experiential programs.”

Shrader agreed that there needs to be a push for IPE in practice settings. “It’s

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“In terms of addressing healthcare problems, we’re in an ideal spot to do something. It would be difficult to engage in the interprofessional movement without pharmacy involved.” ­—Dr. Frank Ascione

the being intentional aspect of it that people are wres“Some [student teams] used FaceTime and some used tling with,” she noted. “One challenge is scaling the IPE the telephone as we became sensitized to the cost to in practice settings so that all students have an opporthe mentor of using their cell phone data plans to comtunity to get appropriate amounts of exposure and get municate,” she continued. “The mentors may not have evaluations from non-pharmacy preceptors and students unlimited data on their phones, or some of our older from other professions.” As Michigan’s Ascione pointed mentors may not feel comfortable with the technology. out, the pandemic revealed the holes in our healthcare As we got ready for fall, we needed to recruit new mensystem and the need for health professions to work totors. Part of that involved assessing their comfort with gether. “From the intensive care unit to community care and training them on the technology if needed. It went and health disparities—you can’t solve those issues in pretty seamlessly. We still had facilitated discussions segments,” he said. “We need to take a broader approach. where faculty met with small student group teams to I am hoping for a more integrative approach to dealtalk about the module and debrief—we used Zoom for ing with healthcare. Pharmacy is going to be important that. Other JCIPE programs depending on simulation because pharmacy is in the community.” for delivery found simulation by Zoom to be a challenge.

But we have phenomenal full-time staff who were able to Collaboration Leads to Better Patient Care assist facilitators in getting through the steps for team At Jefferson’s College of Pharmacy, the provost’s office modules in small groups.” provides centralized support for the Jefferson Center for Brandt said the pandemic illustrated technology’s vital Interprofessional Practice and Education (JCIPE). Every role in delivering patient care. “Last spring we had people class participates in the two-year longitudinal Jefferson contacting the National Center asking for help,” she Health Mentors Program (JHMP) in conjunction with noted. “They had to flip the curriculum in the middle the colleges of health professions, medicine, nursing of a semester. We offered webinars and we really were and rehabilitation sciences; in total, 13 disciplines curfocused on the technology aspects. What we’re learning rently participate. Programs such as this have positively is that the students are positively rating their experiences impacted faculty in that they routinely interface with with this flip in IPE. People are adapting and learning faculty from other professions. how to foster collaboration. People are starting to see the “Through this flagship program, interprofessional student value of that experience related to telehealth. We’ve been teams are paired with a community volunteer who has at talking about telehealth and training for decades. Many least one chronic condition. We refer to these volunteers didn’t take it seriously. Now, having to be on Zoom, they as mentors,” Umland explained. “The main purpose of see that it has the potential to develop skills in telehealth. the two-year program is to learn what it’s like to be a I think this experience is going to teach us a number of person with a chronic health condition, to learn what it’s lessons about effective methodology for using telehealth.” like to traverse the healthcare system.” Those meetings At Texas Southern, an interdisciplinary simulation center always took place in person, so Umland said they had to allows students to work collaboratively on patient cases get creative when the pandemic began last March. and gain experience with clinical decision making. Davis

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AIHC Survey Results The American Interprofessional Health Collaborative (AIHC) and the National Center for Interprofessional Practice and Education surveyed 131 leaders of IPE initiatives to explore how IPE is organized at institutions across the country. To read the report, visit https://nexusipe.org/informing/ resource-center/organizationalmodels-interprofessional-practice-and-education-united.

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said that since the pandemic, they have made an effort to incorporate telehealth into interprofessional activities. “I am hoping we really stay true to our mission to produce practice-ready graduates,” she said. “You need a strong interprofessional base for this. They need to be comfortable and know their role in team-based care and be able to provide virtual patient care. They must be able to contribute to teams remotely and go above and beyond when situations require such actions. Our students are building a good foundation but I want them to be confident interacting with other disciplines, regardless of their area of practice or practice setting.

We’re building strong leadership skills and strong team skills. I’m hopeful that what we have learned with this pandemic will strengthen the knowledge that we have to be flexible, we must see and place our efforts toward the big picture for optimal patient care.”

Umland agreed that the goal is to prepare students to practice collaboratively. “When I meet with first- and second-year students, regardless of discipline, I tell them that before IPE you would spend years trying to figure out everyone’s place in the healthcare system is and who does what,” she said. “Now, by introducing them to each other and having them get to know each other as people at the beginning of their training, they have a much better appreciation for each other. They enter practice being able to communicate well, understand their peers well and the skills of collaboration are foundationally there. The purpose being that patient care is improved, and when you participate in patient care as part of a highly functioning team, your love for your profession improves. Burnout is less. It is so much more rewarding.”

Ultimately, IPE furthers the goal of enhanced patient care, Shrader pointed out. “New practice models are emerging where people will have to have interprofessional teamwork and communication skills in order for them to be successful,” she said. “IPE is one of the things that will help us achieve the quadruple aim in healthcare: providing better patient outcomes, a better patient experience in our healthcare system, doing it as efficiently as possible in terms of costs and resources and making sure we are providing a good experience for the healthcare providers themselves through teamwork and collaboration in a way that increases the joy and value of their work.” P Jane E. Rooney is managing editor of Academic Pharmacy Now.

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@AACPharmacy

Predict student academic performance Ensure you’re recruiting the best candidates!

We understand there are several factors affecting why schools may adopt test-optional admission policies — especially in these challenging market conditions. However, those factors are not necessarily about the predictive value of quantitative measures such as the PCAT. The PCAT remains one of the most reliable predictors of student academic performance in pharmacy programs.

Why risk it? Let’s work together to ensure you’re recruiting the best candidates!

Visit PearsonAssessments.com/PCATvalue to read the white paper Test-Optional Admission Policies and the Value of Quantitative Measures or speak to a consultant at 800.622.3231 800-622-3231

|

PearsonAssessments.com/PCAT

*Source: Retrieved from O*Net on October 15, 2020. Original source: Bureau of Labor Statistics 2019 wage data and 2018-2028 employment projections.

Copyright © 2020 Pearson Education, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Pearson and PCAT are trademarks, in the US and/or other countries, of Pearson plc. CLINA23931 MJL 10/20

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The upward trend of the pharmacy industry Pharmacy retains a moderate future employment outlook despite challenging market conditions.

Pharmacist Wages & Employment Trends* Median wages (2019) $61.58 hourly, $128,090 annual Employment (2018) 314,300 employees Projected job openings (2018-2028) 15,300 Top industries (2018) Retail Trade, Health Care and Social Assistance

@AACPharmacy

Increase Your AACP Member Engagement

AACP offers unique benefits, services and opportunities for individual members such as educational programming, online member communities and numerous member resources. There are countless ways to increase your engagement with AACP and stay connected to the broader world of academic pharmacy.

Four Ways to Enhance Your AACP Engagement: Join a New Special Interest Group Member groups designed to help individuals stay informed and connected to colleagues with similar interests, including Leadership Development, Assessment, Women Faculty, Global Education and more! http://bit.ly/JoinASIG

Post a Question on AACP Connect AACP’s online member community of pharmacy educators contains thousands of discussion posts, resource documents, and countless opportunities to connect with your peers. http://bit.ly/AACPConnect

Participate in an Upcoming Webinar (including webinars with CE Credit) Stay up-to-date on industry news and best practices, with more than 30 Webinars scheduled for this Spring, many with CE credit. http://bit.ly/AACPWebinars

Attend the Annual Meeting This July, attend AACP’s Virtual Annual Meeting, where your peers will meet to discuss pharmacy education issues and to gain insights into teaching and research in your field. www.aacp.org/pharmed2021

And find many more opportunities for involvement with AACP: http://bit.ly/AACPIndividualMembership

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Session Spotlight at INclusion 2021

March 1–3, 2021 Pharmacy educators must prepare graduates to be leaders of healthcare transformation in order to meet the needs of patients and assume new roles in future pharmacy practice. Keynote speaker, Dr. Susan Dentzer, Senior Policy Fellow at the Duke-Margolis Center for Health Policy, will address how healthcare is changing, how those changes have accelerated given the current climate, and the implications for pharmacy and pharmacy education. Also addressing practice transformation is the session, What’s the End Goal? Professionalism or Professional Identity?, and the ALFP debate on the inclusion of entrepreneurship in the curriculum.

Programming at this year’s Interim Meeting, INclusion 2021, March 1–3, is timely and significant, addressing critical issues facing the profession and your community. Take a look at some conference sessions, which will be delivered live to all attendees:

Supporting faculty diversity is a top priority for the Academy. During the session, A Research I University is Making Strides to Have Their Faculty Members be More Reflective of Their Students, the speakers will share how they used a $3M grant to recruit, retain and promote women and women of color in the STEM fields.

Microsessions will address a wide range of approaches to diversity and inclusion on the third day of programming.

There are several sessions that will address COVIDrelated changes to pharmacy education, such as the microsessions related to online/distance education for didactic classes, as well as innovative approaches to experiential education. The session on alternate work arrangements will focus on remote working and how a four-day work week could impact faculty.

Learn more and register today: www.aacp.org/inclusion2021 AACP greatly appreciates the support from our sponsors, whose contributions made this event possible:

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@AACPharmacy

AACP Annual Meeting July 19–22, 2021

Call for 2021 Annual Meeting Poster Abstract Submissions AACP members are invited to submit poster abstracts for Virtual Pharmacy Education 2021, the AACP Annual Meeting. Abstract submissions will be accepted under the following three poster categories: Research and Education Abstracts, Trainee Poster Competition Abstracts, and School Poster Abstracts.

Visit the Virtual Pharmacy Education 2021 Submission Information site for additional information and instructions for submitting an abstract online:

http://bit.ly/VirtualPharmEdSubmissions ɋɋ Research and Education Poster Abstracts: Due March 15 ɋɋ Trainee Poster Competition Abstracts: Due March 15 ɋɋ School Poster Abstracts: Due March 29

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Pharmacists Help People Live Healthier, Better Lives.

1400 Crystal Drive, Suite 300 P Arlington, VA 22202 703-739-2330 P www.aacp.org

2021 Admissions Workshop

Leadership in Enrollment Management

Learn to Lead in Enrollment Management The 2021 AACP Admissions Workshop: Leadership in Enrollment Management is a free virtual event for members and non-members at AACP member institutions. Administrators, faculty and staff who have enrollment management responsibilities are encouraged to join us for this series of four sessions to better navigate the current challenges and opportunities facing pharmacy education.

Monday, March 8, 3:00 p.m. ET Navigating Enrollment Management— Leadership in Turbulent Times

Monday, March 29, 3:00 p.m. ET Professional Competency Areas for Student Affairs Educators

Monday, March 22, 3:00 p.m. ET Don’t Panic! The Importance of Strategic Planning in Enrollment Management during Challenging Times

Monday, April 5, 3:00 p.m. ET Diamonds in the Rough: Developing Enrollment Management Professionals for the Long-term in a High-pressure Environment

To learn about each of the four events visit the AACP website: http://bit.ly/2021AdmissionsWorkshop