Favorite/Least favorite student projects

[Niosh]

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I'm working on updating our student program and I was looking for other ideas for student projects/activities/that sort of thing. Right now we've got kind of the standard DI questions, journal club, case presentation, and patient education stuff. We currently have a mix of inpatient, outpatient, and retail at our site so all ideas are welcome.

What were some of your favorite or least favorite student projects during your rotations?
What sort of projects do you have your students complete during their rotation at your site?

 

[trailerpark]

Journal club is the WORST!


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[Topcat15]

We asked them to help optimize our Pyxis setup. What meds would you take out, what would you add in? We gave them a lot of time to work on it. They had to think about which units require which meds for which disease states, how the meds are dosed to help determine a reasonable par level, etc. They seemed to have a lot of fun with it and it helped us out too.

We also have them do interviews with patients with different disease states. They have pre-made questionnaires with questions to ask (e.g., for diabetic patients, asking about blood glucose control, testing frequency, eye and foot exams, medications and side effects, etc). The goal is for them to understand what the patient knows about their disease and its treatment, and what gaps they need to help educate the patient in. The questionnaires are designed to take up to 30 minutes. Our older hospitalized patients actually really enjoy talking to the students for the most part. After they complete the questionnaire, the students do a reflection activity asking if they were in a busy outpatient pharmacy, what educational points would they want to hit on if they only had a couple of minutes to talk to a patient? Then they pick one of the medications the patient is on and tell us what they think the most important counseling points for that medication are.

 

[zelman]

We started having our students make their own list of 20 most important drugs given the scenario in this podcast: https://therapeuticseducation.org/podcast/episode-300-top-20-medications

It was something they worked on together while doing boring chart reviews over the course of a week and then at the end of the week we discussed/debated their list. It's not real-world-pharmacy heavy, but does help them to apply pragmatism, problem solving-skills and creativity to pharmacy. For example, I'd put chloramphenicol on my list, but never on my hospital's formulary.

I also had my therapeutics seminar students do it. I broke them into groups of 3-4 and had them make lists for 30 minutes, then made a master list by going around the room and letting them add or replace one drug at a time until we hit 20 everyone could accept. This was great for discussion and debate as soon as drugs had to get replaced.

 

[ChalupaBatman86]

My favorite project was whatever I could finish quickly so I could go drink beer and chase girls.


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[bulldog1123]

I hate case studies. You get a handful of interesting one, but the rest are garbage.

 

[Niosh]

We started having our students make their own list of 20 most important drugs given the scenario in this podcast: https://therapeuticseducation.org/podcast/episode-300-top-20-medications

That podcast looks interesting. Is it worth it to subscribe to?

Journal club is the WORST!

I oddly enjoyed journal club. It was simple, easy, busy-work that I could do in downtime during the day. And it was a good way to learn about a narrow topic.

We asked them to help optimize our Pyxis setup.

I like this, ours could definitely use some optimization. Maybe have them pick a few drawers and sort through the mess.

 

[zelman]

That podcast looks interesting. Is it worth it to subscribe to?

I don't think so. They're physicians ( and maybe from Canada?) so there are more applicable other podcasts out there. But, let me know if I'm wrong.