Preceptors make pharmacy student rotations possible
Carloyn Lawrence, Rx2020, standing with Steve Bond, preceptor, in a pharmacy
Clinical rotations are the capstone of pharmacy education at pharmacy schools across Canada. For Waterloo Pharmacy, rotations place students in one of fourteen regions across the province for six months. These regions span across Ontario, from Windsor to Kingston to Thunder Bay, as well as many places in between. Students rotate through different pharmacy workplaces, gaining experiences and benefitting from mentorship of preceptors — pharmacists who volunteer to provide guidance and assessment for rotation students.
Waterloo Pharmacy students begin their rotations in March. When COVID-19 struck, students and preceptors faced tremendous stress. Some teaching sites were no longer able to keep students due to pandemic policies. Other pharmacies faced a major increase in demand for clinical services and found themselves in need of additional help. As a result, the School of Pharmacy experiential team, particularly professor Nancy Waite, Ken Manson and Erika Mutimura, collaborated with the School’s regional clinical coordinators (RCCs) across Ontario to find new placements for students.
The RCCs spearheaded this effort, identifying new teaching sites that could take students. Considering the RCCs live and work in the regions they are responsible for, they have a strong understanding of the local healthcare landscape and where new learning opportunities are available.
“Our RCCs are integral in identifying, recruiting, training and continuing to work with many of the best practitioners the profession has available,” Ken Manson says, experiential coordinator of Patient Care Rotations. “They were able to identify additional preceptors and sites for us to respond to the changes caused by COVID and to ensure that all students who wished to continue with their rotations would be able to so.”
Stephen Bond, a pharmacist manager at Yurek’s Pharmacy in London and regular supporter of Waterloo Pharmacy student learning, is one of these preceptors who took on a student on short notice.
“We’ve been so impressed with the adaptability of both Waterloo Pharmacy students and their program coordinators,” Bond says. “We’ve been blessed to have two students who have been absolutely amazing. It’s a credit to the profession that these young professionals are able to adapt to the changes in practice.”
"I am incredibly grateful to Steve Bond and the Yurek Pharmacy team for their welcoming attitude and openness in providing me with a quality learning experience,” Carolyn Lawrence says, the fourth-year pharmacy student who completed a rotation at the Yurek Pharmacy. “Steve is an excellent preceptor who makes it his top priority to bring out the best in his students. Although my placement here was not planned, it certainly had a positive impact on my professional development."
In recognition of the critical role preceptors play in supporting students, the Experiential Team coordinated a small personal protective equipment (PPE) donation to all Rotation #2 teaching sites.
“We appreciate that preceptors are donating their time and expertise to students during patient care rotations,” Manson says. “This year, due to COVID-19, sites may have also had to provide students with PPE or simply need PPE in general. We felt it was important to support the sites when we had access to a small supply.”
The School donated masks and gloves to cover the duration of the May to June rotation, to ensure that our students were not detracting from the teaching site’s existing supply of PPE.
“COVID-19 has changed my daily work as a clinical pharmacist working for a Family Health Team. For example, I now conduct home and front porch point-of-care INR testing for my patients. Thank you to Waterloo Pharmacy for the wonderful and unexpected PPE parcel that I received! It is definitely needed and will be used!”
COVID-19 has had different impacts at health-care institutions across Ontario. As a result, teaching sites have adapted to how students are integrated into their workflow. Waterloo Pharmacy preceptors have worked hard to ensure students have a safe and educational experience.
“Our preceptors are truly an exceptional group of pharmacists,” Manson says. “In the institutional, long-term care and family health team settings, preceptors have helped advocate internally for our learners to continue in their workplaces. All of our preceptors have supported students through alternative learning formats to complete their clinical experience, including providing remote, virtual care and engaging patients in less traditional manners, in order to deliver the best possible care under the circumstances of a pandemic.”
Thank you to our preceptors!