Educational Renaissance: A Student's Viewpoint

To the Editor. With the profession of pharmacy expanding exponentially and pharmacists taking on more extensive roles that require the use of problem-solving and critical-thinking skills, the necessity for reshaping the way classroom content is delivered will become paramount to the success of both the profession and colleges and schools of pharmacy graduating future pharmacists. The recommended tenets of an initiative such as this have been well articulated previously¹; therefore, my intent is to elucidate, from a student's viewpoint, the philosophical need for such an educational renaissance.

I would first like to reflect on the epistemological implications of such an initiative. Generally, 3 branches of epistemology, or the theory of knowledge, exist: empiricism, rationalism, and constructivism. Rationalism rests upon the a priori attainment of knowledge, and thus, I would posit that traditional learning in pharmacy curricula instill learners with these a priori “pharmacy domains” in which further development of these key “domains” can be fostered. (To clarify, the definition of a priori here should only be used within the context of pharmacy education, in that no prior domain has been established until delivered in the classroom. The tenets of pharmacotherapeutic decisions are made a posteriori, based upon empiric, evidence-based medicine.) I would parallel this theory with the “bottom rung of the ladder.” A traditional philosopher might accuse my theories of being crassly reductionistic and a distinct detachment from the embodiment of philosophy; however, I simply posit this to draw further conclusions. I feel that education should embody all 3 epistemological categories. A complete education, especially in a discipline such as pharmacy, which has a pining for a defined, pronounced role in the ever-evolving scope of interdisciplinary medicine, should reach the top of the ladder, which embodies learning through experience (empiricism), traditional, didactic education (rationalism), and, the “top of the ladder,” synthesis and critical reasoning (constructivism).

The “climbing” to the “top of the ladder” is the driving force behind the proposed educational renaissance. With synthesis and critical reasoning crying out as the needed framework by which pharmacotherapeutic decisions should be made, why then should the pharmacy curriculum not embody the “top of the ladder” philosophy? Blouin and colleagues elucidated pharmacy students' main concern: the metrics by which they will be measured.¹ From a student's viewpoint, I could not agree more! Several times I have found myself falling prey to the same thing I criticize; I worry more about my final grade than the applicability of the information I am learning. Using the standard metrics of grades and regurgitation of content on examinations detracts students from the ultimate goal of synthesizing information and considering application of that material for future practice. (I realize that there is need for some metrics to define whether individuals are capable of educational progression, but I will leave that for another discussion.)

The focus of traditional educational delivery was well defined by Blouin et al,¹ and I feel that as a student, I can weigh in on the consensus that not only students, but the general population, is evolving in the methods by which they learn information. As I tend to borrow heavily from the discipline of epistemology, we have naturally evolved as learners, I feel, to a more constructive learning style (one embodying synthesis and critical reason). As a general population, individuals are more adept to divulging information quickly and from reasonably accurate sources. Comparatively, students are equally more adept to finding basic facts and are no longer challenged by traditional content-rich delivery and metrics requiring them to regurgitate factual information. I feel a transition to education resting upon synthesis and critical reasoning will revitalize the love for education and will represent a mutual positive for both faculty members and students. Faculty members will be able to deliver material on a higher level of thinking for their respective discipline, and students will gain greater perspective and walk away with a deeper appreciation of the topic at hand.

As a student, I hope to one day see the full realization of the educational renaissance. Should we undertake the challenge and engage ourselves in this type of educational delivery and hold each other as students and faculty members to a higher standard? I feel that if so, we will one day reap the rewards of a deep student-faculty relationship in which the tenets of the educational renaissance are practiced and well-prepared pharmacists are educated.

(I thank Dean Robert Blouin and all authors in the referenced article for the inspiration to draft this letter and Dean Pamela Joyner for her suggestion to submit this letter and for reviewing it.)

Jeremy D. Moretz, PharmD Candidate
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC