Toward Training Pharmacists with Research Capabilities

2020/02/20

Pharmaceutical education became a six-year program in April 2006, making this its 14th year. During this time, the students graduating this spring will be the ninth generation to become pharmacists after receiving a six-year education.

At our center, while being involved in the smooth operation of practical training in clinical settings between pharmacy students and supervising pharmacists, we have conducted various scientific validations to pursue more fulfilling training methods.

Recently, not only in pharmaceutical education, there has been a strong demand for a shift from traditional educator-centered process-based education to learner-centered outcome-based education. The educational system is changing to focus on learner outcomes—asking "what can they do?" rather than "what did they learn (or what was taught)?" Therefore, our research group is studying educational methods and items to determine how students can gain successful experiences during practical training to increase their "self-efficacy" and achieve higher outcomes.

In the fields of medical sciences and pharmacy, there is a vast amount to memorize, and it is said that the minimum number of drugs one must learn to pass the National Pharmacist Examination is 500 to 600. Naturally, one must be able to explain not only names and efficacy but also chemical structures, physical properties, mechanisms of absorption, distribution, metabolism, and excretion, as well as mechanisms of action. Furthermore, by utilizing this vast knowledge and experience, pharmacists audit the appropriateness of doctors' prescriptions one by one and make prescription proposals as necessary. In recent years, pharmacists themselves have also been participating in effective and safe drug therapy for patients by checking patient conditions from the perspective of a drug expert and sharing information with other medical staff.

In this way, amid the rapid advancement of medical sciences knowledge and medical technology, more than 10 years have already passed since the start of the six-year pharmaceutical education program. I believe the time has come for pharmacists, who are usually quiet, to demonstrate their true potential.

A keyword that is becoming increasingly important in education at medical faculties is "medical professionalism." However, within pharmaceutical education, a consensus has not yet been reached on what constitutes medical professionalism for pharmacists. Therefore, we have hypothesized that having high problem-solving abilities—that is, being a "pharmacist with research capabilities"—is an important aspect of pharmacist professionalism, and we are challenging ourselves to develop and validate evaluation methods and tools for this.