Evidence Based Medicine Practice and Doctor of Pharmacy (PharmD) Students

Evidence Based Medicine Practice and Doctor of Pharmacy (PharmD) Students

Educational Prescriptions to Document Evidence-Based Medicine Questions in Ambulatory Care Advanced Pharmacy Practice Experiences.
Philbrick AM, Hager KD, Lounsbery JL, Moon JY, Pereira C, Undeberg MR, Westberg SM, Reidt S.
Am J Pharm Educ. 2019 Oct;83(8):7299. doi: 10.5688/ajpe7299. PMID: 31831906; PMCID: PMC6900823.

Researchers form University of Minnesota College of Pharmacy, USA conducted a study to design, implement, and assess the use of “educational prescriptions (Education Rx)” assignments among Doctor of Pharmacy (PharmD) students in advanced pharmacy practice experiences (APPEs) in ambulatory care. And also, they assessed the impact of these assignments on students’ self-efficacy to practice Evidence Based Medicine (EBM). Indeed, it is a very interesting and practical study conducted by the researchers to impart the EBM skills among the PharmD Interns, the future Clinical Pharmacists.

Using educational prescriptions in clinical teaching of EBM skills is well practiced in medicine curriculum. However, Pharmacy students are not well trained on this concept during their course work. In this study, the PharmD interns are trained on four important skills of EMB viz. Ask, Acquire, Appraise, and Apply.

A total of 30 students completed 112 Education Rxs across seven sites during the one academic year. Respondents agreed or strongly agreed that completing the Education Rx activity increased their confidence in their ability to formulate a well-constructed clinical question, conduct an online search, critically appraise the validity of the evidence, apply the evidence found to the question, and efficiently execute the steps of evidence-based medicine to care for patients.

This study proved that the educational prescriptions during the APPEs training of PharmD students will improve their practice of EBM. However, in addition to the point-of-care references, the usage of primary and tertiary sources of information need to be enhanced, as this will improve the decision-making skills. In India, more than 250 Pharmacy institutes offering PharmD program at present. By taking this article as a reference, Indian institutes also should train the PharmD interns to impart the EBM skills. Clinical decision making is an important aspect of the Clinical Pharmacy career of the PharmD students, and EBM plays an important role in clinical decision making.

QMed thanks Dr Krishna Undela, Assistant Professor, Department of Pharmacy Practice, NIPER, Guwahati for this brief review

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