Australian intern pharmacists&amp;rsquo; perceived preparedness for practice, and their expectations and experiences of the internship year and future career intentions

Mak, Vivienne; March, Geoff; Clark, Alice; Gilbert, Andrew L.

doi:10.2147/iprp.s50387

Cited by 15 publications

(34 citation statements)

References 15 publications

(16 reference statements)

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“…Students also feel unsupported in terms of making career related decisions. This highlights the need for early career awareness, exposure to practice, advice and support prior to and throughout the degree to help better decision making to improve satisfaction with career choice 37-39. It would appear that designing a comprehensive career support mechanism across the degree may be useful.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Course experiences, satisfaction and career intent of final year pre-registration Australian pharmacy students

Shen

Fois

Nissen

et al. 2014

Pharmacy Practice (Internet)

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BackgroundIn Australia, the profession of pharmacy has undergone many changes to adapt to the needs of the community. In recent years, concerns have been raised with evidence emerging of workforce saturation in traditional pharmacy practice sectors. It is not known how current final year pharmacy students’ perceive the different pharmacy career paths in this changing environment. Hence investigating students’ current experiences with their pharmacy course, interaction with the profession and developing an understanding of their career intentions would be an important step, as these students would make up a large proportion of future pharmacy workforce.ObjectiveThe objective of this study was thus to investigate final year students’ career perspectives and the reasons for choosing pharmacy, satisfaction with this choice of pharmacy as a tertiary course and a possible future career, factors affecting satisfaction and intention of future career paths.MethodsA quantitative cross sectional survey of final year students from 3 Australian universities followed by a qualitative semi-structured interview of a convenience sample of final year students from the University of Sydney.Results‘Interest in health and medicine’ was the most important reason for choosing pharmacy (n=238). The majority of students were ‘somewhat satisfied’ with the choice of pharmacy (35.7%) as a course and possible future career. Positive associations were found between satisfaction and reasons for joining pharmacy such as ‘felt pharmacy is a good profession’ (p=0.003) while negative associations included ‘joined pharmacy as a gateway to medicine or dentistry’ (p=0.001). Quantitate and qualitative results showed the most frequent perception of community pharmacy was ‘changing’ while hospital and pharmaceutical industry was described as ‘competitive’ and ‘research’ respectively. The highest career intention was community followed by hospital pharmacy.ConclusionComplex factors including university experiences are involved in shaping students’ satisfaction and perception of career. This may relate to challenges in the community pharmacy sector, job opportunities in hospital and limited understanding of the pharmaceutical industry. The results offer insight for the profession in terms of entry into various roles and also to pharmacy educators for their roles in shaping curricula and placement experiences that attract future graduates to defined career pathways in pharmacy.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Course experiences, satisfaction and career intent of final year pre-registration Australian pharmacy students

Shen

Fois

Nissen

et al. 2014

Pharmacy Practice (Internet)

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Finally, although this study's data collection took place in 2009, the findings of this study remain relevant. Similar Australian pharmacy practice studies[8,10] with more recent data collection suggest that the dissonance between the idealist role portrayed in University, and the realities of practice remain.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 74%

“…The problem with this was that while the interns had developed theoretical patient‐centred approaches to practice, this type of practice did not exist in reality. Instead, similar to other Australian studies, there was often dissonance between their expectations and reality [10]. Their university experiences had not enabled the interns to practise being patient centred nor were the realities of practice being acknowledged or addressed [10,53]…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 95%

“…Thirdly, the universities, based on the Australian Pharmacy Council indicative curriculum,[9] seem to be directing students towards clinical and/or patient focus roles. However, a recent study examining the Australian internship year (which is similar to the UK pre‐registration pharmacist role) found that the intern experience does not meet the interns' needs and expectations [10]. In particular, the interns felt that their university preparation, in terms of being prepared for new and alternative career pathways and the knowledge and skills acquired through their university education, was not being utilised in practice [10]…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The formation of one's professional identity, often commencing before entry to professional education, has been found to be both ongoing and iterative as progress is made through the degree [14,16,18,20]. Research examining Australian graduate pharmacists' experience of work suggests that although graduates are prepared for pharmacy work,[21] the transition, in terms of identity formation, can be difficult, as interns are often unable to enact their professional identities and can feel disillusioned, undervalued and underutilised [2,3,10]. Australian and UK studies have found that this can result from pressure to perform routine and technical tasks (e.g.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Making the transition from pharmacy student to pharmacist: Australian interns’ perceptions of professional identity formation

Noble

Coombes

Nissen

et al. 2014

International Journal of Pharmacy Practice

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This paper argues that graduates' experience of the transition to practice was challenging. This was due to nascent professional identities formed in university and a lack of workplace experiences enabling patient-centred practices. The interns' formation of professional identities was highly responsive to the context of work. To facilitate the development of Australian patient-centred pharmacy practice, supporting professional identity formation should be a focus within pharmacy education.

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Exploring preparedness transitions in medicine and pharmacy: a qualitative longitudinal study to inform multiprofessional learning opportunities

Ottrey,

Rees,

Kemp

et al. 2024

Adv in Health Sci Educ

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Despite extensive preparedness literature, existing studies fail to adequately explore healthcare graduates’ feelings of preparedness longitudinally across new graduate transition journeys, nor do they compare different healthcare professions to ascertain what opportunities exist for multiprofessional transition interventions. Therefore, this Australian study, underpinned by temporal theory, explores the preparedness transitions of medicine and pharmacy graduates. Our 6-month qualitative longitudinal study involved 12 medicine and 7 pharmacy learners after purposive sampling. They participated in an entrance interview before starting internship, longitudinal audio-diaries during their first three months of internship, and an exit interview. Framework analysis explored patterns in the data cross-sectionally and longitudinally for the whole cohort (thinking over time), with pen portraits illustrating individuals’ journeys (thinking through time). Preparedness and unpreparedness narratives involved practical skills and tasks, interpersonal skills, knowledge, and professional practice for medicine and pharmacy. However, narratives for practical skills and tasks, and professional practice were dominant amongst medicine graduates, while narratives for interpersonal skills and knowledge were dominant amongst pharmacy graduates. We found numerous cohort changes in feelings of preparedness over time, but the illustrative pen portraits demonstrated the complexities and nuances through time, including feelings of preparedness before internship becoming unpreparedness during internship (e.g., cannulas), improving preparedness through time (e.g., cover shifts), and persistent feelings of unpreparedness (e.g., patient interactions). While our cross-sectional findings are reasonably consistent with existing research, our comparative and longitudinal findings are novel. We recommend that educators build learners’ preparedness through uniprofessional transition interventions involving practical skills and tasks, and professional practice in medicine, and interpersonal skills and knowledge in pharmacy. More importantly, we recommend multiprofessional transition interventions for medicine and pharmacy learners before internship focusing on knowledge, and during internship focusing on practical skills and tasks.

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Australian intern pharmacists’ perceived preparedness for practice, and their expectations and experiences of the internship year and future career intentions

Cited by 15 publications

References 15 publications

Course experiences, satisfaction and career intent of final year pre-registration Australian pharmacy students

Course experiences, satisfaction and career intent of final year pre-registration Australian pharmacy students

Making the transition from pharmacy student to pharmacist: Australian interns’ perceptions of professional identity formation

Exploring preparedness transitions in medicine and pharmacy: a qualitative longitudinal study to inform multiprofessional learning opportunities

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