A Year of Thinking off the Map

Over the past year, American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy (AACP) has expanded many of the programs, products, and services to offer members new and better ways to help keep you on the cutting edge of education and leadership. The most noticeable change has of course been the AACP Web site. It continues to amaze me how different it is from the legacy site and how easy it is to navigate. If you have not yet had an opportunity to navigate the site, please visit it soon to test out some of the new features such as the robust search tool, school locator map, scrolling newsfeed and Pharmacy Education Assessment Services (PEAS) - the dynamic system supporting your assessment efforts. Please share your feedback with AACP leaders and staff. In addition to the new Web site, AACP made another major capital improvement and upgraded the membership and financial database system. The new system allows staff members to serve AACP members in a more efficient and effective manner. It is hard to believe that it has been 12 months since I stood before you at our Annual Meeting in Chicago and challenged you to “Think Off the Map.” I described the major initiatives that I intended to pursue during my presidential year. These were: the formation of a global alliance for pharmacy education, my issue “X”; faculty recruitment and retention and assessment services, my issues “Y-1” and “Y-2”; and curricular reform, my issue “Z”. Permit me to summarize the progress we have made over the past year in each of these initiatives. I will start with curricular reform. Throughout my career I have been most passionate about curricular issues and have stated on many occasions that the time is now for each of us to take a serious look at our curriculums – from the top down. Our curriculums must be designed to prepare our graduates to cope with the profound changes they will face during their careers. We must do a better job of helping them learn the skills of critical thinking and assessment. To put it another way, we must prepare our graduates for an undiscovered future. I am very pleased to hear that so many of our programs have begun to rethink how their curriculums should be structured. To this end, I am pleased to announce that the Academic Affairs Committee has developed a Curricular Change Summit to bring together teams from our colleges and schools to gain insight and direction for curricular reform. The summit will convene on September 9-12, 2009, in Scottsdale, Arizona. I am extremely pleased that this Summit is a reality. I am confident that it will provide the catalyst for meaningful change in curricular structure and outcomes. Thanks to Gary Oderda, who chaired the Academic Affairs Committee, and his group for a job well done. As for Issues “Y” 1 and 2 during the past year, AACP also has launched a number of new initiatives to make academic careers more appealing. This includes our new online career center, the academic pharmacy exhibit program, and our brochure to highlight the programs, products, and services that AACP offers its members to help assist with stronger faculty development. AACP will roll out American Pharmacy Educator Week to be held each year during the last week in October. Each college or school will receive a kit filled with tools and resources to help you host events, mentor or adopt a pharmacy student, and communicate that academic pharmacy is an excellent and exciting career choice. A special resource in the kit was provided by AACP leader Cindy Koh-Knox. It contains a guide, complete with helpful tips for adopting a pharmacy student at your college or school. Our new Web site features a tool sharing capability and discussion board for our assessment leaders which we call PEAS. I encourage you to submit your assessment tools for collaboration with your fellow members. In 2010, PEAS will be expanded to include a Web-based tool for managing self-studies and facilitating continuous programmatic assessment. This project will be developed jointly with ACPE. I would like to take this opportunity to thank our Institutional Research and Assessment Committee and a special advisory committee on our joint self-study management system project for their hard work and leadership. Another avenue that can be taken to create a more robust faculty pool lies within the academy itself. We are now seeing many colleges and schools of pharmacy interested in offering dual degree programs. To get a better perspective on how these programs may be used to increase our prospective faculty pool, I charged the Research and Graduate Affairs Committee to examine the role and structure of dual degree programs. This committee, chaired by Dean Lynn Crismon, provides an excellent overview of the present status of these programs. It provides several suggestions and recommendations that can be considered by colleges and schools that offer these programs to increase the number of graduates who choose to enter the Academy. Another avenue to increase the pool of potential faculty members deals with postgraduate training – specifically the PGY-1, PGY-2, and fellowship training programs. I charged the Professional Affairs Committee, chaired by Carolyn Gaither, to consider the leadership role of the academy and member institutions in supporting the anticipated demand for growth and development in postgraduate education. The committee proposed 7 recommendations that address postgraduate training and academic-practice partnerships for residency training. Lastly, the Committee on Advocacy was charged to report on how communities and patients can capitalize on the collaboration between the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and academic pharmacy to improve medication-use safety. This committee, chaired by Jim Kerher, provides 7 recommendations that touch on a wide range of issues and activities related to drug safety and how we may work more closely with the FDA to support and advance improvements in patient and consumer safety. In my Issue X, I challenged AACP to consider the establishment of a global alliance for pharmacy education. My thanks to Rosalie Segraves, who represented the Academy at several international conferences and meetings. We have begun a dialogue with several international organizations similar to AACP to envision how a Global Alliance for Pharmacy Education might do 2 things: create a contemporary vision of pharmacy practice and education and prepare faculty members to develop programs that will move the profession to a more patient-centered focus. The response to our idea of forming an education alliance has been very positive. We are confident that the formation of this alliance will enhance pharmacy education and practice both here and around the world. Last but not least, I expressed concern about the role the Academy should play in encouraging leadership in our students and new practitioners. I charged the Argus Commission with examining the critical question of how we create agents of change for pharmacy and for society. I asked 5 national student pharmacy leaders to work with the Argus Commission to provide their input from a student perspective. Many rich discussions evolved from this group of pharmacy leaders. It was evident to the commission and to the student leaders that the practice of pharmacy in many settings remains far from what our students are looking for as they begin their professional careers. To move the profession in a new direction, it became clear that we develop our future leaders to become change agents to transition the practice of pharmacy from its primary focus on drug distribution to a practice environment that places the patient and their safe and effective use of medications as its central focus. The Argus Commission's report clearly articulates the need for threading leadership development through curricular and co-curricular elements of our programs. Thanks to Buzz Kerr and the Argus Commission for a very insightful and timely report. You will have an opportunity to review all of the Standing Committee reports and I encourage you to incorporate as many of these recommendations as possible. A more detailed report on the work of your association can be found in the 2009 AACP Annual Report, available outside at the registration desk. Once again, I am extremely pleased with the progress we have made over the past year and want to thank each of the committee members and the AACP staff for the support you have given me in moving the Academy to think off the map.