Restructuring the inpatient advanced pharmacy practice experience to reduce the risk of contracting coronavirus disease 2019: Lessons from Saudi Arabia

Abstract

Introduction: On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization announced the rapidly spreading epidemic of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Almost all countries started to take proactive precautionary measures to reduce the risk of contracting the virus. The education sector, including pharmacy education, has been drastically impacted by this pandemic. During the outbreak, many hospitals instructed the health profession's schools to restrict or prevent the presence of their students and interns in their hospitals in an effort to limit the spread of the virus. Objectives: Constraining the presence of interns in the affiliated hospital has impacted the integrity of delivering the learning outcomes of each clinical rotation. In this paper, we present the experience of four faculty preceptors in restructuring the advanced pharmacy practice experience in different clinical settings, including critical care, infectious diseases, cardiology, and internal medicine, in order to reduce the risk of contracting COVID-19 at a large academic medical institution in Saudi Arabia. Conclusion: We believe that this experience could provide guidance and insights for other pharmacy schools dealing with this issue during this global pandemic.