Simulation workshop prepares pharmacy students to handle disaster scenarios

It never hurts to be over-prepared. The Mobilizing and Advancing Pharmacy Leadership in Emergencies (MAPLE) Collective was formed as a collaboration between four Canadian pharmacy schools (Memorial University, the University of Alberta, the University of British Columbia and the University of Waterloo) to create an interactive disaster preparedness workshop for pharmacy students. The workshop, Preparing for the Unexpected in Pharmacy Workflows, is designed to simulate a community pharmacy disaster. It was delivered to 119 Waterloo pharmacy students in November and will be taught to 325 pharmacy students across Canada by July 2026.The MAPLE Collective includes Allison Slater, Colleen Brady, associate professor at the University of British Columbia, Mikaela Thorne, pharmacy skills laboratory instructor at Memorial University and Kaitlyn Watson, assistant professor at the University of Alberta.“This educational workshop was designed for senior level PharmD students as part of a professional practice lab course to introduce students to the principles of emergency preparedness as it relates to pharmacy practice,” said Allison Slater, assistant professor at Waterloo Pharmacy, in a release from the university.The workshop was included during the Fall 2025 semester in one of the courses. Students were put into groups of four and each group acted as a pharmacy team in a fictional rural community. During the simulation, students were presented with typical pharmacy tasks like checking prescriptions, performing calculations, counselling patients and answering questions from other healthcare professionals. Some tasks also required interacting with a standardized patient who was looking for care about a minor ailment. As normal tasks built up, as they would in a real pharmacy, a simulated emergency would occur and the tasks eventually shifted towards the needs of patients who were displaced due to evacuation orders. “Eventually, the pharmacy itself was faced with technology challenges that make providing care even more difficult,” said Slater. “Students had to think on their feet and get creative to continue to care for the needs of all of their patients.”The teams needed to determine how to provide care for patients with limited resources and in unexpected scenarios. After the simulation, students participated in a group debrief and discussed how they could prepare for circumstances like these in real life. “The experience better prepared me to juggle multiple responsibilities in real world practice and opened my eyes to the additional considerations pharmacists must account for during extreme environmental conditions. I feel much more confident and prepared for future emergency situations as a result,” student Haley Lambert added.

Simulation workshop prepares pharmacy students to handle disaster scenarios

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