Pharmacists’ Role in Conducting the Cardiovascular Physical Examination

Physical examination has become a “lost art” for many clinicians across a variety of disciplines. Many pharmacists have not had formal physical examination training in school and those that have rarely utilize these skills after completing their training. Pharmacists are poised to employ physical examination in their patient care setting to evaluate the effects of therapy, triage patients, and guide clinical decision-making. This piece describes a general overview of the importance of physical examination and provides readers with a list of tools that pharmacists can use to reinforce prior knowledge of the cardiovascular physical examination.

Innovation on Rotation: Incorporating Active Learning Strategies

As a preceptor, can you recall a time when a student or resident forgot a fundamental concept? This is a common frustration, but the issue may not be poor understanding or lack of interest in the topic. Rather, the learner may be struggling with assimilating all of information acquired during the rotation experience. Active learning is an effective strategy in the classroom setting and has been shown to increase retention of knowledge. In this blog, we will explore several active learning techniques and how they can be applied to experiential learning.

Flipping Your Rotation (Part 1 of 2): The Fundamentals

In the health care field, learners are expected to complete experiential training (often called rotations or clerkships) to develop clinical skills. However, encouraging learners to apply concepts learned in the classroom often requires a lot of dedicated teaching. As a preceptor, do you find it challenging to make time to teach students because of your other obligations? In this two-part series, we’ll cover strategies to help you engage students on rotation while maximizing time for other activities using the flipped classroom model. In Part 1, we’ll describe the fundamentals of the flipped classroom and explain its benefits and challenges. In Part 2, we’ll cover how the flipped classroom can be applied to experiential learning.