Toward Training Pharmacists with Research Capabilities

Pharmaceutical education transitioned to a six-year system in April 2006, making this the 14th year. During this time, the students graduating this spring will represent the ninth generation of pharmacists to have received a six-year education.

Our center has been involved in the smooth operation of practical training conducted at clinical sites between pharmacy students and supervising pharmacists, while performing various scientific validations to pursue more fulfilling training methods.

Recently, not only in pharmacy 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—not "what was taught," but "what the learner has become able to do." Therefore, our research group is working on research from the perspective of educational methods and items to determine how students can gain successful experiences during practical training, increase their "self-efficacy," and achieve higher outcomes.

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

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

A keyword that is becoming increasingly important in education at medical faculties is "medical professionalism." However, within pharmacy 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 verify evaluation methods and tools for this.