A new learning space prepares pharmacy students for hospital practice

The Faculty of Pharmacy at the Université de Montréal (UdeM) has set up a simulation room to better prepare students for their clinical internships in a hospital environment.A multidisciplinary team developed discovery activities including practical and exploration exercises in a location reproducing a patient room and a nursing station.The room includes the equipment usually found in hospital care units.Students can consult a patient file, a nursing Kardex, a simulated DSQ, a vital signs folder and a hospital intranet (see photos below).The room aims to better prepare students for their first internship in a healthcare establishment at the end of their 2nd year and students in the Pharmacy Qualification (QeP) program at the end of the second trimester.“Often, this internship is, for students, a first experience in a hospital. They do not know the hospital reality,” says Katherine Desforges, clinical pharmacist in geriatrics at the McGill University Health Centre and clinical assistant professor at the Faculty of Pharmacy at UdeM.Many students arrive at this internship relatively anxious since they know neither how it works nor the work tools available to them in a hospital environment, says Desforges. Claude Mailhot, professor at the Faculty of Pharmacy at UdeM, led the project. “Having a first contact with the hospital environment will allow students to feel more confident at the time of their internship and to better understand the role of the pharmacist in the care team. They will therefore be able to take full advantage of it,” she says.“The goal of these activities is really to get as close as possible to the reality of the environment,” adds Desforges.Two workshops plannedThe stimulation room will offer the students two activities. The first, in groups of four, aims to introduce them to the environment and familiarize them with sources of information and tools in the hospital environment. Students must complete an online questionnaire and search for answers using the various tools available in the room.“The questionnaire is not intended to evaluate the students, but it serves as a guided discovery while using a fun approach,” explains Mailhot.Students also get the answers as soon as they reply to the questions, allowing them to learn in real time through constructive feedback.For the second activity, students write notes in the file at various times during a patient's hospitalization: upon admission, during hospitalization and upon discharge.Mailhot says the students who have used the room since its inauguration last January really appreciated its addition to the curriculum.Other innovations to comeThe simulation room is part of the Faculty's professional practice laboratory modernization initiative, which began implementation about two years ago.In 2022, it added the MyDispense program to the training, a virtual simulator allowing students to interact with patients presenting at the community pharmacy counter.Two other projects will complement the modernization initiative. The first will be a tele-simulation project for patient care which will be carried out in partnership with medical and nursing students.The second project will consist of building three simulated community pharmacies where students will this time learn to manage the complex cases of certain patients and carry out priority management.“The modernization of practice laboratories aims to prepare our students for the practice of tomorrow by ensuring that they are competent, comfortable and confident in the face of the expansion of their field of practice,” says Mailhot, who is leading this modernization project.

A new learning space prepares pharmacy students for hospital practice

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