By: Alexiss Dennett-Zuniga, Pharm.D. Candidate and W. Renee’ Acosta, R.Ph., M.S.
Within the past decade, the pharmacy profession has increasingly implemented patient-centered practices, emphasizing personalized interactions among patients and healthcare teams. This shift highlights the significance of effective communication, teamwork, and adaptability. When assessing prospective student pharmacists prior to matriculation, great focus is put on their technical skills such as GPA, prerequisite coursework and the optional Pharmacy College Admissions Test (PCAT) score.1 While various studies have analyzed how these components of an application can be predictors of a student pharmacist’s success, few studies have evaluated the same impact of a student’s soft skills, the interpersonal and intrapersonal qualities that encompass communication, teamwork, problem solving, and organization. Soft skills are the underlying foundation upon which a student’s professional journey is built, enabling them to navigate real-work scenarios beyond the realm of technical knowledge. Despite the challenge of quantifying these skills, their influence on a student’s ability to cultivate professional relationships, effectively communicate, and collaborate in a team cannot be overstated. These skills empower students to adapt gracefully to dynamic environments and drive innovation in their field.
Of the 142 fully accredited pharmacy schools in the United States, 94 recommend observing a pharmacist before enrollment, while only 2 programs require observation hours before admission.2 The Pharmacist’s Patient Care Process, introduced in 2014, highlights the importance of using patient-centered treatment options to optimize health and medication outcomes.3 This process involves five steps: Collect, Assess, Plan, Implement, and Follow Up. A crucial component of this process is appropriate and effective communication between a pharmacist and patient. Communication maintains its significance as pharmacists need to seamlessly integrate it into their collaboration with other healthcare professionals. Although categorized as a soft skill, effective communication holds substantial importance in enabling pharmacy students to smoothly transition into the roles of practicing professionals.
This prompted me to examine whether communication skills gained from pharmacy-related work experience influenced student pharmacists’ success in their PharmD curriculum. To expand on this concept, I investigated whether a student’s previous work experience, both pharmacy, and non-pharmacy roles such as academia (ex. teacher), entertainment (ex. musician) , and public service (ex.firefighter), could affect their patient communication abilities. Specifically, I assessed if these factors could predict communication performance in Objective Structured Clinical Examinations (OSCEs) which are designed to evaluate a student’s clinical and non-technical skills, including communication. If a relationship exists between a student pharmacist’s previous work experience and their OSCE performance, this information could guide admission committees in selecting students likely to perform well in the curriculum.
A retrospective analysis of PharmCas applications was conducted for the admitted Class of 2024 at The University of Texas College of Pharmacy. This review aimed to examine the implementation of clinical case-based OSCEs, which were initiated in the program during the class of 2024’s second year of pharmacy school. Each OSCE is associated with two separate scores. One evaluating the communication skills that the student pharmacist exhibited while performing their scenarios and a second score that evaluated whether or not the clinical recommendations they made were correct. Within PharmCas, applicants have the option to document a maximum of eight previous employments. From this information, we selected the three jobs that they had worked the most hours in. Each job was then categorized into one of fifteen categories, ranging from pharmacy to non-medical field positions such as hospitality, academia, and agriculture. This information was then matched to the communication score the students earned on the OSCE they completed in their second year of pharmacy school. The compiled data was then analyzed to determine if a relationship between the student’s job category and OSCE score existed. While there was no statistical difference between the OSCE scores and previous work experiences of the 104 students, the only notable trend was the tendency for students who previously worked in hospitality to score higher on the communication component of the exam than those who had worked in academia.
The lack of significant difference could be due to various factors. For one, the size of the class of PharmD students who participated in this project was only 104 which limited the sample size I was able to evaluate. In addition, the student communication scores were evaluated rather than their clinical performance on the OSCEs. The communication score is more subjective and impacted by the inter-rater reliability and bias. In addition, the narrow scoring scale could have also had an impact on the study’s results.
Although the results of this analysis did not indicate an impact of previous work experience on the academic success of pharmacy students, it could impact their confidence and performance during experiential rotations where effective communication is critical.4 Both areas hold potential for future research. Despite these findings, an intriguing question arises: Are there undiscovered aspects of soft skills and their influence on student success that warrant exploration?
References:
- Williams JS, Metcalfe A, Shelton CM, Spivey CA. Examination of the Association of GPA and PCAT Scores on Objective Structured Clinical Examination Scores. American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education. Published online February 20, 2018:ajpe6608. doi:https://doi.org/10.5688/ajpe6608
- Pharm.D. Directory | PharmCAS. Pharmcas.org. Published 2021. https://www.pharmcas.org/school-directory/pharmd-directory
- The Pharmacists’ Patient Care Process – JCPP. JCPP. Published 2015. https://jcpp.net/patient-care-process/
- Bloom TJ, Smith JD, Rich W. Impact of Pre-Pharmacy Work Experience on Development of Professional Identity in Student Pharmacists. American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education. 2017;81(10):6141. doi:https://doi.org/10.5688/ajpe6141
Author Bio(s):
Alexiss Dennett-Zuniga is a third-year Pharm.D. Candidate at the University of Texas at Austin. Her educational interests include academia and the practice of community and ambulatory pharmacy. In her free time, Alexiss enjoys baking and spending time with her husband and dogs.
W. Renee’ Acosta is a Clinical Professor and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at The University of Texas at Austin. Her research interests include over-the-counter products, student assessment and success, and innovative teaching methods.
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