Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences

A Curriculum Mapping Exercise for

1st Year Pharmacy Students

David Manallack

The Usual Complaints

“We’ll never use this stuff”

“Why do we have to study all this chemistry”

“I can’t see the point of all this”

It was time to do something about the moaning

Why we developed this activity

First year students struggle to understand the need for

enabling sciences in the curriculum and lack early

identification as a pharmacy professional.

The curriculum mapping activity endeavoured to develop

students’ understanding of the relevance of the enabling

science subjects to the B. Pharm. course and also of the

curricula as a whole to their impending career as

pharmacists.

An overview of how the session is run

Students are promoted to being

pharmacists

A prescription arrives for Ari Contos

(morphine 60 mg tablets)

Students are asked to pose questions (in

order to safely dispense the prescription)

Armed with these questions and an

indication of the mapping task, students

build a curriculum

Ari Contos

46 Holmes St

Pharmville 3052

19 9 XX

MS Contin 60 mg tabs

1 bd x 28 (twenty-eight)

0 R (no repeats)

Dr Usaim Yusuf Gaber

18 Thanet St Pharmville 3052

Phone: 78635343 Presciber No. OP94007

x

In other words

In order to safely dispense the prescription, what would the

students need to know and understand, and what

professional skills would be required.

The curriculum must be oriented to addressing the

questions students raise.

Example questions

Are you familiar with Ari Contos?

What is wrong with Ari?

What is MS Contin?

How does MS Contin work? [addictive?]

What legal requirements are there?

How is it formulated? [why twice daily?]

What do I tell Ari about his medicine?

How do we help Ari beyond this prescription?

Pharmacy Practice

Integrated Therapeutics

Chemistry

Pharmacology

Pharmacy Practice

Drug Delivery

Pharmacy Practice

Pharmacy Practice

The Mapping ‘Game’

Students are given a poster with 4 year levels and 36 velcro

tabs (9/year)

A list of potential career options sits at the top

They also have a bag of 36 subject cards (e.g.

biochemistry, psychology, counselling, drug development,

and so forth)

In teams of 5 or 6 students they build a curriculum

considering:

– The sequence of topics

– The relationships between topics

– (missing topics)

An example

Social skills – learning greetings

Colouring – fine motor skills

Alphabet Numbers

Basic

punctuation

1-syllable

words

Subtracting 2-syllable

words

Climbing –

gross motor skills

Counting Counting

backwards

Adding

Running

errands

Vowels &

consonants

Skills Progression at Primary School

Shape

identification

One possible map

Academic

(education/

research)

Drug

information

pharmacist

Drug

industry

Pharmacy

manage-

ment

Community

pharmacist

Hospital

pharmacist

Postgraduate

study (e.g.

PhD)

Regulatory

bodies (e.g.

government)

Military

Integrated

therapeutics:

neurology and

psychiatry

Integrated

therapeutics:

oncology

Integrated

therapeutics:

dermatology

& pain

Integrated

therapeutics:

gastrointesti-

nal disease

Integrated

therapeutics

: respiratory

disorders

Drug

development

Professional

experience

placement

Public health Inter-

professional

relationships

Pharmacology Integrated

therapeutics:

endocrinology

& Renal

Integrated

therapeutics:

infectious

disease

Integrated

therapeutics:

cardio-

vascular

Drug

disposition

& pharma-

cokinetics

Drug

metabolism

Ethics Dispensing Counselling

Medicinal

chemistry

Microbiology Immunology Molecular

biology

Drug

delivery

Drug

formulation

Pharma-

ceutical

calculations

Legal Communi-

cation

Organic

chemistry

Cell biology Physiology Biochemistry Physical

chemistry

Maths Statistics &

epidemiology

Health &

society

Psychology

A Comparison to Our Curriculum

As unit names are unable to give a good description of the

subject matter, we developed the subject cards

In many cases we provide a sentence on the card as a

glossary term for the subject.

The course runs as four streams

– Enabling sciences

– Pharmacy Practice

– Integrated Therapeutics

– Drug Delivery

Semester 2, Year 4

Integrated Therapeutics- Advanced Practice

Integrated Therapeutics-Psychiatry

Integrated Therapeutics-Neurology and Oncology

Contexts for practice III

Semester 1, Year 4

Drug Delivery and Development

Integrated Therapeutics-Endocrinology and Renal disease

Integrated Therapeutics-Dermatology and pain

Professional Experience Placement program

Semester 2, Year 3

Drug Delivery II Integrated Therapeutics-Infectious Diseases

Electives Contexts for practice II

Semester 1, Year 3

Drug Delivery, Disposition and Dynamics

Microbiology and immunology

Integrated Therapeutics-Respiratory and Gastrointestinal

Contexts for practice I

Semester 2, Year 2

Drug Delivery and Disposition

Basis of Drug action II Integrated Therapeutics-Introduction and Cardiovascular

Pharmacy in a public Health context

Semester 1, Year 2

Biochemistry and Molecular Biology

Basis of Drug Action I Cell function, communication and pathology

Pharmacists as Communicators

Semester 2, Year 1

Drug Delivery 1 Systems Physiology Bio-organic and Medicinal Chemistry II

Pharmacy, Health and Society II

Semester 1, Year 1

Physicochemical basis of pharmacy

Introduction to physiology

Bio-organic and Medicinal Chemistry I

Pharmacy, Health and Society I

The curriculum

DRUG DELIVERY

ENABLING SCIENCES

PHARMACY PRACTICE

INTEGRATED THERAPEUTICS

The Survey

Demographic information

1. Male | Female (please circle one)

2. I am a Domestic / International student (please circle one)

3. For each statement, circle the option that best represents your

situation:

(circle one)

a. I studied VCE (or equivalent) last year: yes | no

a. I have studied at university before: yes | no

a. I have had paid work in a pharmacy: yes | no

a. I am studying pharmacy because I want to work as a

pharmacist:

yes | no

Survey opinions

Survey opinions

Written opinions/comments

15. What were the best aspects of the curriculum mapping activity?

16. How could the curriculum mapping activity be improved to help you

better understand the course as a whole?

17. Please provide any other comments you have about the curriculum

mapping activity.

Key Results

The statement, ‘Prior to this activity I had a good

understanding of the relationship and need for the topics in

this course’, was used as an initial benchmark with which to

compare post-activity statements: 46% of students

agreed, 37% remained neutral and 17% disagreed.

Post activity questions

The following statements, all designed to show whether the activity

increased curriculum understanding, brought interesting results:

‘The activity helped me better understand the need to study foundation

topics for each area.’

‘The activity helped me better understand the logic in the sequence of

the BPharm topics.’

‘The activity helped me better understand the need for the breadth of

BPharm topics.’

‘I can now make better sense of the BPharm curriculum as a whole.’

‘The activity helped me understand the relationship between the

different subject areas and my future career.’

Results

80% of students agreed they had better understanding of curriculum–

subject needs because of the activity.

Given that 46% had perceived good understanding initially, this was

seen as significant.

Of note, 77% of students agreed with the fifth statement that mapped

the activity to better understanding of subject relevance and future

career.

These results have been interpreted that the activity gave students

substantial insight into the need for subjects, including the enabling

science subjects, and the importance of these subjects to a

pharmacists’ professional work.

Results

67% of students agreed this activity should be used each year.

International students valued the activity more than domestic students.

Other findings showed that students who don’t work in pharmacies

valued the activity more than those who have part-time work.

Students with prior university education held stronger views about the

need for the activity to be held. Seventy per cent of such students saw

the need for the activity in first year, while 17% perceived it as

unnecessary. However, only 63% of university-naïve students identified

a need for the activity, while 10% of them believed it was unnecessary.

Summary

Overall, the exercise was deemed a significant success

from a student and staff perspective, and we have now run

our second session

A debrief meeting was held with facilitators to discuss

improvements for future delivery. We have also moved the

activity to first semester, as was suggested by a number of

students.

Acknowledgements

Based on an original idea

by Laurence Orlando –

Monash University

Jenny McDowell,

Kim Styles

We are happy to share

materials with any group

(e.g. Engineering)