Developing virtual patient role-play cases to enhance critical thinking and therapeutic relationship skills in Pharmacy students

In order to prepare graduates to be competent in pharmaceutical care, Pharmacy curricula are required to provide students with learning experiences that allow them to develop effective thinking, reasoning and patient-centred communication skills. As the profession of pharmacy expands its scope of practice to enhance patient-centred care, there is a need to further the experiential aspects of pharmacy curricula that support the development of thinking, reasoning and effective patient relationship skills. Traditionally, experiential learning outcomes have largely been during on-site rotations. However, with the expanded scope of practice, this component will have to be increased considerably if schools are to prepare students for practice. It is not sustainable or effective to increase the number of sites, so alternate learning experiences must be considered and developed. One promising area is that of virtual patients. Virtual patients are computer programs that simulate real-life clinical scenarios in which the learner acts as a health care professional obtaining information from the patient regarding their past and current medical conditions and making therapeutic decisions to support the health of the patient. This proposal requests funding to develop several virtual patient cases for use in the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences undergraduate curriculum.

Ingrid Price, Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences