Assessment of Preceptor Development Strategies across Canadian Pharmacy Residency Programs

摘要

INTRODUCTION: Pharmacy preceptors serve as instructors, coaches, and role models for pharmacy students and residents. The skills needed to become an effective preceptor are not innate; as such, preceptors require support to foster this aspect of their professional development. The Canadian Pharmacy Residency Board (CPRB) places responsibility on program directors and coordinators to ensure that all preceptors receive orientation to preceptorship duties, as well as ongoing training and development in this area. In addition, the CPRB requires that preceptors receive feedback on their performance through evaluation by residents. Any other form of feedback is left to the discretion of individual programs. As such, there is likely variability in how preceptors are oriented, trained, and evaluated across the country. The education and development of preceptors can be offered in various formats, including live educational events (e.g., presentations or journal clubs), print or digital education, virtual networking, and one-on-one assessment and feedback. Vos and Trewet1 performed a before-and-after assessment of a multimodal preceptor development program, which included live, online, and written educational materials, as well as assessment of and feedback to individual preceptors. Students were asked to provide a global assessment of their preceptors, as well as evaluation of the feedback and evaluation they received from the preceptors, orientation, organization of the rotation, and the overall experience. Following implementation of the preceptor development program, these authors found statistically significant increases in student satisfaction with the feedback received from preceptors at midpoint and final evaluations and in the percentage of preceptors with an overall rating of "good". Conversely, there was a statistically significant decrease in the percentage of preceptors rated as "fair" or "poor". Preceptors used a 5-point Likert scale to provide their overall assessment of the education modules; the mean scores ranged from 3.7 to 4.3 for the various modules.