Letters

Letters Implementing mentoring into a pharmacy teaching and learning curriculum

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ecent recommendations for standardization of postgraduate pharmacy experiences in education include the implementation of a mentoring program.1,2 The Indiana Pharmacy Teaching Certificate (IPTeC) program emphasizes the importance of the mentor–mentee relationship in developing successful teachers.3 IPTeC mentors include faculty from local colleges of pharmacy as well as pharmacists from a multitude of practice sites. Program participants are encouraged to choose mentors within their facility to promote consistent feedback. Mentors are asked to review their mentee’s teaching portfolio, lecture handouts, patient cases, examination questions, and teaching philosophies. Resources are provided to assist mentors in this process, and communications are sent as reminders of upcoming deadlines for successful completion of program requirements. Without mentors, timely and meaningful guidance would not be provided to pharmacy residents who are IPTeC participants. Working closely with a mentor provides participant residents with the opportunity to attend faculty meetings, participate in campus committees, and

observe various types of teaching. Program mentors can also provide individualized education that matches the career goals of each resident. However, our experience with effective implementation of a mentorship program has not been without challenges. Logistic impediments in facilitating the mentor–resident relationship represent one obstacle. This includes sending multiple communications to residents to ensure timely mentor selection, maintaining up-to-date mentor–resident lists, and triaging questions from mentors or residents. Mentors encounter their own logistic challenges, such as an inability to meet face-to-face or observe an offsite resident’s teaching. To ameliorate these issues, IPTeC liaison positions were developed at our institution and entailed electing two current resident participants to serve on the IPTeC executive committee. A primary role of the liaisons is to facilitate the mentor–resident relationship. This position provides the liaisons with leadership and committee experience and scholarship and networking opportunities while reducing the IPTeC leadership team’s workload, improving communication with mentors and resi-

The Letters column is a forum for rapid exchange of ideas among readers of AJHP. Liberal criteria are applied in the review of submissions to encourage contributions to this column. The Letters column includes the following types of contributions: (1) comments, addenda, and minor updates on previously published work, (2) alerts on potential problems in practice, (3) observations or comments on trends in drug use, (4) opinions on apparent trends or controversies in drug therapy or clinical research, (5) opinions on public health issues of interest to pharmacists in health systems, (6) comments on ASHP activities, and (7) human interest items about life as a pharmacist. Reports of adverse drug reactions must present a reasonably clear description of causality.

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dents, and alleviating many of the logistic challenges described. Determining how best to match mentors with residents has been another challenge. IPTeC participant residents are expected to select their own mentor. They can choose individuals with whom they have previously formed a relationship or who have a similar background or practice interests. However, selection may be challenging for participants new to Indiana, who can find it difficult to determine the ideal match and daunting to ask the assistance of someone they have not met. To help, IPTeC provides contact information for past mentors; if further assistance is sought, program coordinators facilitate the matching process. Other issues with this selection structure are the inundation with requests for certain faculty members and the challenge of identifying sufficient numbers of mentors to meet the demands of the large group of IPTeC participant residents (approximately 90). To provide meaningful feedback on topics such as developing teaching philosophies and portfolios, writing syllabuses, and presenting didactic lectures, our recommendation for residents is to seek mentors with strong teaching backgrounds. Faculty members with adequate teaching experience Continued on page 909

Short papers on practice innovations and other original work are included in the Notes section rather than in Letters. Letters commenting on an AJHP article must be received within three months of the article’s publication. Letters should be submitted electronically through http://ajhp.msubmit. net. The following conditions must be adhered to: (1) the body of the letter must be no longer than two typewritten pages, (2) the use of references and tables should be minimized, and (3) the entire letter (including references, tables, and authors’ names) must be typed double-spaced. After acceptance of a letter, the authors are required to sign an exclusive publication statement and a copyright transferal form. All letters are subject to revision by the editors.

Letters Continued from page 906

and an ability to facilitate the required teaching opportunities for residents tend to be the most popular mentors sought by residents. This leads to many faculty members mentoring multiple residents and a reduced ability to provide residents with the desired amount of feedback. Although Wright et al.1 recommended that mentors be faculty members at a college of pharmacy, we find this not always feasible due to our large number of participants. Instead, the mentor qualifications we recommend to IPTeC participants include didactic teaching experience, significant teaching outside of the classroom, and previous completion of a teaching and learning curriculum, in addition to commitment to developing postgraduate pharmacist trainees, which more resemble those outlined previously by American College of Clinical Pharmacy.2 Inclusion of nonfaculty mentors is especially beneficial to participants more interested in experiential teaching roles. A final challenge lies in maintaining deadlines. Mentors are often provided insufficient time to review residents’ teaching material. In addition, as deadlines approach, mentors with multiple residents experience voluminous labor. Furthermore, mentors have expressed confusion as whether it is the mentor’s or resident’s role to hold residents accountable for these deadlines. We have found that striking the appropriate balance between available resources (i.e., mentors) and program expectations (e.g., feedback frequency) is crucial. IPTeC requires one midpoint and one final teaching portfolio review as opposed to the quarterly feedback suggested in recent guidelines.1 We agree with recent recommendations that mentor–mentee relationships serve as a key component of teaching and learning curricula.1,2 However, facilitating such relationships presents challenges. The IPTeC program has incorporated several strategies to manage these challenges, which may be beneficial to similar programs attempting to implement mentor–mentee relationships.

1. Wright EA, Brown B, Gettig J et al. Teaching and learning curriculum programs: recommendations for postgraduate pharmacy experiences in education. Am J Health-Syst Pharm. 2014; 71:1292-302. 2. Havrda DE, Engle JP, Anderson KC et al. Guidelines for resident teaching experiences. Pharmacotherapy. 2013; 33:e147-61. 3. Gonzalvo JD, Ramsey DC, Sheehan AH, Sprunger TL. Redesign of a statewide teaching certificate program for pharmacy residents. Am J Pharm Educ. 2013; 77:1-7.

Kirk E. Evoy, Pharm.D., Pharmacy Resident Saint Joseph Regional Medical Center Mishawaka, IN [email protected] Kendra M. Malone, Pharm.D., Pharmacy Resident Eskanazi Health Indianapolis, IN Jasmine D. Gonzalvo, Pharm.D., BCPS, BC-ADM, CDE, Clinical Associate Professor of Pharmacy Practice and Clinical Pharmacy Specialist, Primary Care

Purdue University College of Pharmacy Indianapolis, IN Darin C. Ramsey, Pharm.D., BCPS, BCACP, Associate Professor of Pharmacy Practice Butler University College of Pharmacy Indianapolis, IN Amy H. Sheehan, Pharm.D., BCPS, Assistant Professor of Pharmacy Practice Purdue University College of Pharmacy Indianapolis, IN Tracy L. Sprunger, Pharm.D., BCPS, Associate Professor of Pharmacy Practice Butler University College of Pharmacy

The authors have declared no potential conflicts of interest. DOI 10.2146/ajhp140873

Incorporating the Pharmacy Practice Model Initiative into advanced pharmacy practice experience rotations

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he Pharmacy Practice Model Initiative (PPMI) is a patient-centered model that aims to advance the practice of pharmacy by encouraging pharmacists to take a larger role in direct patient care.1 An expanded pharmacist role necessitates a redistribution of responsibilities through increasing the use of pharmacy staff at all levels of education and practice. The PPMI also proposes that pharmacy students and technicians perform distributive tasks, allowing pharmacists more time to focus on clinical aspects. By adopting cutting-edge technology to decentralize pharmacists, expanding the role of pharmacy technicians, allowing student pharmacists to make guided interventions, and promoting specialized knowledge acquisition through the completion of pharmacy residencies, institutions will allow pharmacists to have a more direct role in interprofessional patient care.

As the practice of pharmacy evolves, it is important to maintain and strengthen pharmacy department leadership, responsibility, accountability, and infrastructure. Key components of leadership include mentoring students who will soon become practitioners involved in expanding the patient care role of the pharmacist. Concurrently, pharmacists should incorporate students into the provision of pharmacy services while continuing to ensure medication safety. With proper guidance, students can advance the role of the pharmacist and positively affect patient outcomes. A recent study demonstrated that student pharmacists had a positive impact on several Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems scores in the “communication of medication” domain.2 The use of student pharmacists also decreased the load of patients per pharmacy staff member from 30:1 to 7:1.

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