CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

Introduction Pharmaceutical Practice (PP) is a last year subject included in the Pharmacy degree curricula of the National University of La Plata, whose correlatives are Pharmacotecnics I and Pharmacology II (1). Although it reports us about the student academic profile, it does not report neither their vocational profile before starting the degree nor their professional expectations after their graduation. We are also unaware of the relationship between metacognition and those issues studied under PP. In order to characterize the profile of those students starting to study PP and validate any selected topics with the knowledge achieved during their career, surveys were used (2). Materials and Methods To meet the first objective mandatory and classroom closed surveys were performed at the beginning of teaching cycle. Questions asked were: Why did you choose to study Pharmacy? What professional practice were you aware of before starting to study Pharmacy?, What Professional Practice would you like to perform? The student could choose more than one option. As for the second objective, after each class teaching, voluntary and closed surveys were carried out by e-mail. For every topic 5 or 6 subtopics were selected. Then we asked whether it had been previously taught as part of another subject; which was its level content compared with PP and if it should continue within PP curriculum. The surveys were designed by professor of PP. To study the results Excell´97 was used. Results Student profile results are an average of 122 surveys conducted during 10 teaching cycles. PP students chose to study pharmacy because: it is a health-related profession (50.56% ± 18.05); they liked chemistry in high school (30.21% ± 15.28); they like the role pharmacists play (13.061% ± 7.80); the remaining options were under 10%. Before entering college, everybody were aware of the officinal pharmacy practice (OPP), half knew about industrial pharmacy (IP) (48.74% ± 10.56) while a quarter knew about hospital pharmacy (HP) (22.60% ± 8.60) and drug research (25.77% ± 22.06). As regards their future specialty option, they chose OPP (41.06% ± 20.88), IP (44.08 ± 16.65), HP (51.75 ± 20.75) and research (27.33% ± 9.75). All 22 PF topics during 4 teaching cycles were validated with an over 70% answer rate. From all validated subtopics (114), the students answered that 67 of them (59%) had not been taught in other subjects while 42 (37%) had been taught but with differential content level so their teaching should not be discontinued in PP. They also considered that 5 (4%) subtopics (from 3 different topics) should be removed from PP curriculum. Discussion and conclusion UNLP Pharmacy students have chosen this career mainly because of their belonging to health team. OPP is the best practice known. However, over half of the students chose HP as their future professional activity. Studies linking these data with employment status are required. PP curriculum design has been validated through the view of those students involved. Considering that 37 % of subtopics may be found in other subjects it is necessary to develop vertical and crossed workshops encouraging articulation and integration. References 1. Plan de Estudios Carrera de Farmacia. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas. Universidad Nacional de La Plata. http://www.exactas.unlp.edu.ar/ca-fa2.php?lang=1 (Disponible en OCtubre 2012). 2. Mora Vicarioli, Francisco. Experiencia en el uso de encuestas en línea para la evaluación diagnóstica y final de un curso virtual. Tecnología en Marcha, Vol. 24, N.° 4, Octubre-Diciembre 2011, P. 96-104