Skills lab for students
Practising in your own pharmacy
Door Lotte Kruijer
By Lotte Kruijer
Lotte Kruijer
‘Good morning, how can I help you?’ the pharmacist asks the woman on the other side of the counter. ‘I’ve got some issues with my bowels and my stomach, do you think you could help me?’ the woman answers. After conferring with her colleagues, the pharmacist comes back with a solution. ‘Ma’am, I’m going to give you a laxative. You need to take it once a day.’
It could have been a scene from any pharmacy in the country, except this particular customer stuffed a pillow under her shirt and is wearing a grey, curly wig on her head. That’s because she is not, in fact, an elderly woman with bowel issues; she is Tanja Fens, project leader Pharmacy Game International and guest lecturer. The pharmacist and her colleagues are students.
‘Today is prescription day, which means patients visit the pharmacy. The students have to be real pharmacists and help them’, Fens explains. ‘The fact that the students are really behind a pharmacy counter takes the whole thing to a higher level.’
Entire department
As her colleague Claudia Dantuma explains, the pharmacy game isn’t new; it’s been in development for twenty-five years. ‘But what started as a classroom with a few tables with a piece of paper that said “Counter 1” is now an entire department.’
Being behind a real counter takes the whole thing to a higher level
Ever since the Anda Kerkhoven Centre, the new educational building for the Faculty of Science and Engineering and the medical faculty, opened last year, the pharmacy programme has had its own Skills lab with six simulated pharmacies. There, students are presented with situations that could happen in a real pharmacy. Patients, played by actors or lecturers, come up to the counter, and then it’s up to the students to perform the right actions.
When Fens talks about how the game mimics the real world, she is very serious. For eight weeks, the students are the pharmacists, and they run the entire pharmacy by themselves. They not only have to talk to patients, but they also have to input the prescriptions into the Pharmacy Information System and make contact with general practitioners, which are either played by medical students or real doctors. If they can’t figure something out, they can call a central line, which goes to the game coordinators. ‘It’s a big production’, says Fens.
Challenging
The pharmacy isn’t just a simulation, though; there are game aspects to it as well. The third-year students do everything to earn as many points together in order to end up as high as they can in the pharmacy rankings. Student Elise Lammers enjoys the concept: ‘The game is challenging and educational. Being behind the counter is a unique experience.’
It was especially stressful in the beginning, she says. ‘There are so many things to keep in mind: after all, we’re pretending to be real pharmacists. Fortunately, you gradually learn how to work in a team and I’ve learned to let things go. Everyone pretty much knows what the day will bring by now.’
In the morning, the students start out by dividing the tasks at hand, Fens explains. ‘In addition to processing prescriptions and receiving patients, the students are also working on a patient care project, their vision on how to improve the field of pharmacy.’
Practical experience
‘It’s a remarkable course, as it combines everything we’ve learned so far’, says Elise. ‘I can tell that other people think it’s special, as well. When I tell my friends about it, they’re amazed that it’s a real course. I can imagine people think it’s interesting that you’re spending all day pretending to be a real pharmacist while at the same time playing a game with your fellow students’, she says, laughing.
There are so many things to keep in mind
She also has a side job at the outpatient pharmacy at the UMCG, which means she has some experience. But because the pharmacy bachelor programme doesn’t offer any internships, she wouldn’t have known otherwise what it’s like in the real world. ‘Here, we learn how to communicate with other healthcare providers, such as general practitioners and assistants. If something goes wrong or we need to ask something, we can call a general practitioner who is available to us at set times.’
The programme even recreated a living room, where students can practise pharmacy visits at home. ‘There’s also a separate room where we can explain how things work, just like in a real pharmacy.’
Pilltown
All six pharmacies are part of the fictitious Pildorp (Pilltown), which includes hospitals and doctors’ practices, as well as the residents, who are the pharmacies’ patients. Everything happens within the town, and everything is connected. One day in Pilltown mimics a week in the ‘real world’. This allows students to follow their patients for an extended period of time.
Most people barely know what pharmacists actually do
Fens: ‘The students themselves are responsible for doing everything. All their actions in the pharmacy are evaluated. All patients that stop by will evaluate the task performed by awarding it a number of points. The better the students’ performance, the more points they earn and the higher their ranking.’
‘It’s a competition, but a fun one’, says Elise. ‘Every time a new case comes in, we wonder how many points we’ve earned and whether we’ve gone up in the rankings. It’s a great motivational tool for the team.’
The game doesn’t just help the future pharmacists themselves, but their (work) environment as well. ‘Most people barely know what pharmacists actually do’, says Elise. ‘The other day, we had a meeting with general practitioner students. Afterwards, they said they had a much better idea of how they can ask for our help. So it’s great that it helps them, as well.’
Collaboration
The UG isn’t the only pharmacy programme to use the concept: the universities in Leiden and Utrecht have also included it in their curriculum. But Groningen has the most extensive simulation where everything takes place in their own lab. ‘There’s plenty of room for students to practise a wide range of skills’, says Fens. ‘From customer relations to leadership.’
The Groningen game has even drawn attention from abroad. Collaboration with universities both in- and outside of Europe means the concept has spread all over the world. ‘They can’t wait to come take a look this summer’, Fens says proudly.
But that doesn’t mean it’s time to rest on her laurels. ‘We’ll continue to develop the concept further, together with our international partners who want to expand the concept. We meet every once in a while to hear each other’s ideas and to brainstorm about how we can improve the students’ experiences. It’s so much fun; we just keep inspiring each other.’