Canadian educational approaches for the advancement of pharmacy practice

Abstract

Canadian faculties (schools) of pharmacy are actively engaged in the advancement and restructuring of their programs in response to the shift in pharmacy to pharmacists having/assuming an advanced practitioner role. Unfortunately, there is a paucity of evidence outlining optimal strategies for accomplishing this task. This review explores several educational changes proposed in the literature to aid in the advancement of pharmacy education such as program admission requirements, critical-thinking assessment and teaching methods, improvement of course content delivery, value of interprofessional education, advancement of practical experiential education, and mentorship strategies. Collectively, implementation of these improvements to pharmacy education will be crucial in determining the direction the profession will take.