After such a long time without being able to organize conferences in person, the European Association of Faculties of Pharmacy (EAFP) managed to organize its annual conference in Malta in May. The FREMFARM team was there of course.
FREMFARM Participation
The group presented one oral presentation about the use of Team Based Learning (TBL) in pharmacy education and two posters about interventions related to introducing debate as a pedagogical tool in clinical pharmacy and using audio reflective notes as learning tools.
In the oral presentation, Lone Holst showcased how we use TBL in social pharmacy at the University of Bergen, and how it is considered the favorite way of learning from students’ perspective. The presentation generated a lot of interest in the audience, both during the Q & A-session and in the days that followed, and many expressed interests in trying it out in future teaching. In the poster presentations, Mirey Alfarah, Educational Researcher, and Aase Raddum, Associate Professor exposed the results of two new teaching methods, the debate, and the Reflective Audio Note (RAN). Both were teaching innovations that were designed and implemented last semester and illustrate how collaboration between an educational researcher and educators has positively driven educational development.
Towards Pharmacy 5.0 Education
The theme for this year was ‘Towards Pharmacy 5.0 Education.’ The conference spotlighted opportunities and experiences in pharmacy education, reflected on digital readiness in education and practice, and discussed competence-driven curricula.
We asked some of the participants about their take-aways from the conference and how they see the future of the pharmacy education and profession.
Mia Sivén, vice-dean of the faculty of pharmacy at the University of Helsinki, believes that the future of the pharmacy profession will depend on, first, a shift towards new and innovative teaching methods and second, on including students’ perspective in pharmacy education. “Students are willing to have very diverse teaching methods. I think that would be one important thing to consider.”
In her opinion, pharmacy education should be innovative but innovation in teaching methods should be introduced to support the learning and always in alignment with the learning objectives.
“Students are willing to have very diverse teaching methods. I think that would be one important thing to consider.” Mia Sivén
Mirari Ayerbe Diaz, dean of the faculty of pharmacy at the University of the Basque Country, found the conference very useful mainly because she got to know more about the changes happening around teaching methods and how to analyze and evaluate their impact on students learning. In addition, Mirari found it very interesting to gain awareness about the new subjects that should be introduced in the curriculum, like digital health.
When asked about the future of pharmacy profession, her opinion was that pharmacists, who already are leaders in providing healthcare to the community should move toward a more inclusive care, where no one is excluded.
Linda Amundstuen, Senior Lecturer, from Nord University in Norway, has a similar point of view, she believes that the profession is evolving very fast, and that as a consequence, the education needs to adjust to the market’s demands as well, which may require more student active learning methods.
Linda thinks that in Norway, in the coming years we will see pharmacists outside the pharmacy more often than before, both in community work and hopefully more in the Norwegian pharmaceutical industry.
“ In Norway, in the coming years we will see pharmacists outside the pharmacy more often than before.” Linda Amundstuen
Berglind Eva Benediktsdóttir, associate professor at the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of Iceland, couldn’t agree more, she also trusts that the pharmacists of the future should be closer to the society, be approachable by the public, and should have more visibility in the society. To do so, faculties must shift to a more active teaching to provide the students with the needed tools.
Tamara Koehler, educational researcher at Utrecht University, was surprised by the diversity of European schools of pharmacy when it comes to content, staff development and educational research. Tamara’s message in this conference was to promote for a SoTL (Scholarship of Teaching and Learning) approach because of its importance in advancing pharmacy education.
The conference was very fruitful for our work, not only to present and share our research findings but also to get to know the experiences of other faculties in Europe.
The conference submissions could be found here: EAFP conference abstract book
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