Retrospective Analysis of Pharmacy Students' Perceived Readiness from Pharmacy Residency Preparation Elective with their Match Rates

Abstract

PURPOSE: Pharmacy residency is becoming a standard requirement for pharmacists who work in the clinical field and is a competitive process. Giving a presentation is a part of the interview process to obtain a residency. There are courses available that helps students to better prepare for residency by having them give a presentation. The purpose of this study is to compare students’ and preceptors’ evaluations of how well each student gave their presentations with relation to their match rates to ASHP certified residency programs. Secondary factors that could affect match rates include GPA, gender, and age. METHODS: Students taking the residency preparation course during the Spring of 2016 and 2017 were asked to choose and present a disease state presentation from a list of topics. Their presentations were assessed by their peers, as well as, by pharmacists who have had residency experience. A Likert scale was utilized to assess 15 different areas of the presentation ranging from nonverbal cues to depth of knowledge. Scores ranges from 1 to 5, with 5 being favorable. Mann Whitney U was used to assess the 15 areas with relation to residency match rate via SPSS. De-identified information concerning residency match rates, age, gender and overall GPA, from both groups were analyzed and compared to one another to see how the seminar is impacting student match rates. The de-identified information was obtained from UNTHSC's senior data manager. RESULTS: A total of 26 students were assessed who took the residency preparation course in 2016 or 2017 and applied for residency. Of these students, 18 were female (69.2%) and 8 were male (30.8%). The median age was 24.5 years (IRQ 23 - 27.5) and the average GPA was 3.28 ± 0.3. Of the students that took the course in 2016, 12 were assessed; 9 were females, 3 were males. The median age for 2016 was 24 (IQR 23 -25) and the mean GPA was 3.32 ± 0.30. Of the students that took the course in 2017, a total of 14 students were assessed, with 9 females and 5 males. The median age for 2017 was 25.5 (IQR 23 – 30) with a mean GPA of 3.18 ± 0.3. Most of the median scores for the 15 questions had a value of 5. CONCLUSION: Students tended to rate their peers highly in formative assessments. A possible limitation to this study could include having a small study population. Also, we noticed that students and pharmacists tended to prefer to rate each presentation highly so our results may have been skewed to the right.