Abstract

COMPETENCY ASSESSMENT OF CLINICAL PHARMACY EDUCATION IN THE PHILIPPINES: A BASIS FOR CURRICULUM FRAMEWORK

Erwin Martinez Faller*, May Florence Dela Cruz – Bacayo, Anthony Bernardo Abustan

ABSTRACT

Clinical pharmacy education should have an extensive framework of curriculum to develop globally competitive clinical pharmacy professionals. This study examined the competency of clinical pharmacy education in the Philippines, which is the basis for the development of curriculum framework. It investigated the offered clinical pharmacy program in terms of employability, life-long learning, competency, relevance of curriculum and view of graduates on the quality of clinical pharmacy curricula. Purposive sampling was used to identify the participants. Narrative interviews were done given their academic experiences from universities and current workplace. The study revealed graduate’s employability was influenced by their competencies on therapeutic knowledge skills, medical literature evaluation, and communication skills. Moreover, current curriculum must review its current protocols on research and electives that influence the graduates' specialization on clinical pharmacy based from institutional needs. It was apparent that certain subjects were not significant on the specialization of clinical pharmacy, but taken mandatory. Thereby, creating a need to refocus the program. On the other hand, professional subjects, seminars and core courses were relevant for their current job. It provided insightful findings for universities to develop curriculum framework for internship programs. This will organize systems to meet global quality standards of clinical pharmacy education.

Keywords: Clinical pharmacy, Curriculum Framework, Philippines.