Pharmacy students are tested on more than just written exams. The Milestone Assessment places students in realistic situations to determine their preparedness for their occupation.
Objective Structured Clinical Examinations are given at the end of the semester that test the clinical skills of pharmacy students. The Milestone Assessment is an OSCE for third-and fourth-year pharmacy students to interact with an actor-patient.
The Milestone is an eight-station OSCE set up to rotate students through different scenarios that a pharmacist would encounter in real life.
"We have stations set up like clinical settings or community pharmacy settings, and sometimes it might be in the emergency room," said Sharon McDonough, director of the Harrison School of Pharmacy's Office of Teaching, Learning and Assessment.
Each station takes approximately 10 minutes. Students must read a prompt that orients them to the situation and is allowed three minutes to prepare before the actor enters the room. The final seven minutes is for the student to assess the actor's condition.
Students are evaluated by the actor in the room and by an observer viewing through a teleconference system from another room.
Evaluators use a checklist to assess the student's ability to educate the patient on the medication that will be provided, along with their communication and attitude.
"It's an intimidating assessment due to its cumulative nature," said Stephen Jamison, a fourth-year pharmacy student.
Members of the pharmacy staff intervene whenever there is a discrepancy with properly grading a student. In previous years, the test has had no consequence for poor performance, but that has changed.
"Now, starting this next year, when the third-year students take the Milestone, they will be expected to pass it," McDonough said. "If they don't pass it, then we will have some type of remediation plan in place for them, depending on their deficiency."
Students would be expected to return the following year to retake the exam and pass it in order for them to graduate. The exam provides students with better feedback on their progress than a written exam would .
"We're able to assess some skills with this kind of test that you can't assess with paper and pencil," McDonough said.
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