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College Updates Pharm.D. Assessments

Mandatory PCOA, OSCE Exams Assess Student Skills, Knowledge for Progression

UH College of Pharmacy has initiated its transition to  the Pharmacy Curriculum Outcomes Assessment (PCOA) exam and the Objectively Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE)/OSCE-like exams for the assessment of Pharm.D. students’ skills and knowledge.

The exams are now required for every UHCOP Pharm.D. student in the first, second and third year of the program as a formal assessment and embedded in courses within the curriculum.

"The combination of these two assessment tools will provide a more robust system by which the college can evaluate the knowledge, skills and application of our students as well as the effectiveness of our curriculum to provide these skills," said Elizabeth Coyle, Pharm.D., BCPS, FCCM, assistant dean of Assessment and clinical professor. "Many OSCE-like assessments have traditionally been part of our courses, such as patient counseling and Therapeutics case exam. We will now utilize the students’ performance in these practical exams in conjunction with performance on the PCOA."

The comprehensive PCOA exam was administered in January 2014 to the P1-P3 classes by representatives of the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy, which developed the 220-question exam covering basic biomedical sciences; pharmaceutical sciences; social, behavioral and administrative sciences; and clinical sciences.

Adopted by the UHCOP faculty last May, the PCOA replaces the in-house “Milemarker” tool used by the college for nearly a decade to determine and assess knowledge and progression readiness. With the benefits of greater standardization of exam questions and more accurate benchmarking to national data, the PCOA assessment is formative in the P1 and P2 years, and summative for the P3s. Minimum competency must be met for the P3 students to progress to APPEs.

Developed in the 1970s, the OSCE is part of the licensing requirements to practice medicine in the U.S. and both medicine and pharmacy in Canada. According to a 2010 survey article in the American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education, only 11 out of 88 responding pharmacy programs consistently held multi-station OSCEs using standardized patients. However, interest and implementation of such programs is on the rise in pharmacy academia nationwide. 

The OSCEs and OSCE-like exams throughout the curriculum evaluate student knowledge in scenarios that highlight their skills and abilities in a practical setting, such as patient counseling, resolving prescription fill issues, physical assessment, case workup and presentation, IV admixture, prescription fill, errors and omissions, and interprofessional practice. The summative OSCE using multiple stations of standardized patients will be held in late April for P3s.  

Dean F. Lamar Pritchard, Ph.D., commended the UHCOP faculty and PCOA/OSCE organizers - led by Coyle - for their efforts during the transition and implementation process. 

"This hard work is building a lasting legacy that will truly enhance the quality of our professional program and our terrific graduates as they move forward to provide critically important healthcare services for our great state and beyond," Pritchard said.