Johanne Barry

Successful Application of Large Microneedle Patches by Human Volunteers

Graphical abstract

Using debate to teach pharmacy students about ethical issues.

Objective. To create, implement, and evaluate debate as a method of teaching pharmacy undergraduate students about ethical issues. Design. Debate workshops with 5 hours of contact with student peers and facilitators and 5 hours of self-study were developed for second-year pharmacy students. Student development of various skills and understanding of the topic were assessed by staff members and student peers. Assessment. One hundred fifty students completed the workshops. The mean score for debating was 25.9 out of 30, with scores ranging from 23.2 to 28.7. Seventy percent of students agreed that the debates were a useful teaching method in the degree program. Conclusion. A series of workshops using debates effectively delivered course content on ethical issues and resulted in pharmacy students developing skills such as teamwork, peer assessment, communication, and critical evaluation. These findings suggest that pharmacy students respond favorably to a program using debates as a teaching tool.

Attitudes of Pharmacy Students and Community Pharmacists to Numeracy

There are many instances in which community pharmacists employ their numeracy skills as part of their professional practice. It is vital that pharmacists are able to routinely perform calculations accurately, so as not to compromise patient safety or damage the reputation of the profession. It has been reported that university admissions tutors and lecturers believe that the students they are taking in are increasingly less capable with respect to their mathematical abilities. The numeracy standards of pharmacy students have been called into question recently and the pharmaceutical societies have introduced a compulsory calculations section onto their registration examinations. In this study, the attitudes of pharmacy students and community pharmacists to numeracy were investigated. It was found that, although students may lack confidence when it comes to performing pharmaceutical calculations and their qualified peers may doubt their abilities, they consistently perform well in the calculations section of the registration examination.

Development and validation of procedures for assessment of competency of non‐pharmacists in extemporaneous dispensing

Objectives To develop and validate procedures that may be suitable for assessment of competency of two groups of non‐pharmacist staff (pharmacy students and trainee support staff) in extemporaneous dispensing. This is important given the prospect of remote supervision of community pharmacies in the UK.