Training pharmacists for the future
ChatGPT, a language processing tool driven by artificial intelligence (AI), has been making headlines since its launch late last year.
Waterloo’s School of Pharmacy has already been utilizing a generative AI platform since early-2018 to enhance experiential learning for pharmacy professionals and students. Now, the School is looking to incorporate ChatGPT technology in that same platform.
“Initially I was a skeptic,” says Dr. Jeff Nagge, a clinical associate professor at the School of Pharmacy. “I thought experiential face-to-face learning was by far the best way to do this type of training. After all these years of using generative AI, this form of training when designed properly seems to be at least as good or superior to the traditional learning path. We are now considering some research designs to test this hypothesis.”
Nagge, alongside Marie Lippens, associate director of WatSPEED, Waterloo’s professional and continuing education hub, designed a professional development course called Management of Oral Anticoagulant Therapy (MOAT). The course uses a generative AI platform to teach pharmacists the principles of warfarin management.
Warfarin is a drug prescribed to patients with cardiovascular risks and is used to prevent blood clots. The medication has several drug interactions along with many lifestyle interactions that need to be monitored regularly and doses adjusted accordingly to ensure patient safety.
As a result, treating those with warfarin is complicated and requires hands-on learning for pharmacists.