The Impact of Clinical Simulations in Pharmacy Ethics Education

For 15 years, the author used case studies as the main teaching strategy in a required ethics course she taught in a PharmD program at a private university in the Midwest of the United States. Then she started to reflect specifically on her teaching and asked questions about the usefulness of this approach: “what am I really teaching? how to be a good person? how to make sound decisions? am I teaching critical thinking?” Haddad was interested in teaching for understanding, getting closer to lasting learning that was clinically relevant to students after they left the program and entered their professional roles. The author was troubled by the lack of context and authentic, discipline-specific content regarding ethical decision making and ways to improve not just her own teaching but to advance the field of ethics education in the health sciences. She re-designed the course to include four clinical simulations using standardized patient interactions. The chapter describes highlights of this teaching and learning journey including samples of the various tools specifically developed for the project, formative and summative assessment outcomes, lessons learned as a teacher and practical considerations for those in the health sciences who might want to replicate such a project.