Designing and Delivering a New Elective for Pharmacy Students during COVID-19

Pharmacists are increasingly becoming the health professionals that interact most regularly with patients who have diseases or disorders for which exercise is an effective and recommended treatment or therapy Despite major curricular changes within pharmacy training programs in recent years to facilitate a more hands-on role with patients, there has been negligible attention paid to training in exercise physiology and prescription The goal was to therefore develop a course that would provide student pharmacists with the knowledge and skills to make evidence-based exercise recommendations to their patients, with a specific focus on chronic diseases and conditions that are commonly seen in community pharmacies The 2-credit elective was designed to be taught by distance in order to accommodate students across two campuses and final year students undertaking clinical rotations across Washington In hindsight, this decision was prescient given that its deployment was delayed until the fall of 2020 when all courses in Doctor of Pharmacy program at Washington State University were being delivered remotely due to the COVID-19 pandemic Fifteen self-contained modules were developed and delivered using the Blackboard learning management system and released to students on a weekly basis Each module contained 3-5 learning objectives, an instructor-prepared video of no more than 15 minutes in duration that introduced and described the relevant material and provided practical examples relative to pharmacy practice, and links to resources that provided additional information on the respective topic Students were then required to complete a quiz containing five open-book, multiple choice questions that directly addressed the stated learning objectives Finally, 2-3 case studies, questions, tasks or articles that directly related to the weekly topic were posted by the instructor to a shared discussion board and students were required to review and analyze the materials and then share their thoughts and findings with their peers The instructor held two voluntary one-hour Zoom meetings each week to allow students to discuss the module topic in a live online conversation with their peers and the instructor N=33 students were registered in the course and all demonstrated attainment of knowledge and skills relevant to the defined learning outcomes and therefore received a passing grade Formal feedback from the students was 100% positive in terms of the course structure, pace, assessment requirements and use of technology, in addition to the instructor's ability to stimulate interest, challenge students, respond to questions or problems, and integrate the course to the students? pharmacy training Future plans include examining whether the course increased the frequency and improved the effectiveness of evidence-based exercise recommendations given by pharmacy graduates to their patients