University of Waterloo School of Pharmacy students join 10 different colleges to engage in an impactful learning experience
On March 19, 2025, third year University of Waterloo School of Pharmacy students joined pharmacy technician students from over 10 different colleges to participate in an interactive large-scale workshop at Humber Polytechnic in Etobicoke, Ontario. Over 300 students approaching graduation, licensing and entry to pharmacy practice spent the day networking with one another to understand each other’s roles, responsibilities and perspectives.
The Intraprofessional Exploration: Pharmacy & Pharmacy Technician Programs Event focused on bringing together future pharmacists and future pharmacy technicians to build connections between them early on in their education, for a strong understanding and appreciation of each other’s roles in their future practices.
“Effective intraprofessional collaboration is crucial in modern healthcare settings to improve patient care. Across various practice settings, pharmacists interact with pharmacy technicians more frequently than any other healthcare professional. Given the highly interconnected roles of pharmacists and pharmacy technicians, intraprofessional collaboration is critical to ensure effective teamwork,” Sandra Gerges says, professor and program co-ordinator, pharmacy technician program at Humber Polytechnic.
“This event aimed to create a psychologically safe environment for pharmacy and pharmacy technician students to learn together about each other’s scope of practice and how collaborative work that features delineated roles can offer overall benefits to the efficiency, safety, quality, and access to patient care across community and institutional pharmacy practice settings in Ontario. Providing a foundational opportunity to discuss the value of regulated pharmacy technician’s roles among pharmacy professionals also left pharmacy technician students feeling more valued and recognized for their contributions to patient care,” says Mat DeMarco, PhD student at Waterloo Pharmacy.
Waterloo Pharmacy students and pharmacy technician students at Humber Polytechnic
Students had the opportunity to engage with one another across the pharmacy profession and to learn about the impact they can have on the patients they serve together. Learners participated in workshops that:
- built their inclusive language use
- explored and celebrated the uniqueness of each profession
- encouraged the use effective communication to build trust and mutual respect
- helped students navigate conflict that can arise to improve their decision-making skills
- explained how future pharmacists can build supportive workplace environments to nurture pharmacy technician professional development in their future practices
Learners formed meaningful connections and gained a deeper understanding on the importance of collaboration between pharmacy professionals.
“The event was a huge success! Learners spent the day learning with, from and about one another. To our knowledge, this is the first time that a pharmacy intraprofessional event at this scale has occurred in Canada,” Gerges says.
“The big take-away from today for the students was that a pharmacy professional workforce working collaboratively to their full scope of practice increases the capacity of the entire pharmacy workforce while maintaining or improving the quality, safety, and access of patient care,” adds DeMarco.
Thank you to the students, faculty, and staff at Humber Polytechnic for organizing and hosting this event, as well as all participants and facilitators from across all the schools involved.