"Myth or Fact under Pressure": Active Learning through Real World Simulation

Abstract

Introduction Pharmacists are often confronted with new and unfamiliar situations. Moreover, when patients raise any question/concern, they usually expect a quick but trustful answer, which requires a prompt evidenced oriented literature search. We analyzed the students' perspective concerning an assignments designed to train these situations. Materials and methods Pharmacology II is a curricular unit of the Integrated Master on Pharmaceutical Sciences of the Faculty of Pharmacy of the University of Porto, Portugal (4th year, 1st semester). Students (2-3/group) were asked to answer a "myth or fact" question in the context of cardiovascular or endocrine pharmacology, within a limited time (same day). They were guided to use a maximum of two systematic reviews and/or meta-analysis to solve the problem. At the end of the semester, students were asked to anonymously respond a survey to grade the contribution of this assignment to the acquisition of certain skills (scores 1-low to 5-high) and to answer few open questions. Results 69/156 students responded to the survey. When the highest scores (>4) were considered, students highlighted the development of critical thinking as well as planning and time management capacities as skills for which this assignment contributed most (81% and 83% of the students, respectively). Also, 80% of the students considered that this assignment contributed to their education as a future pharmacist with a grade>4. Development of creative thinking was the skill that less students graded >4 (46% of the students). Qualitatively, the "real world scenario" was identified as a major strength of the assignment. Conclusions We report an assignment that contributes to pharmacy education mostly by training critical thinking and plan and time managing skills, which are relevant in certain situations of the pharmaceutical profession.