Strategies for Developing Pharmacy Residents as Educators

In 2009, the American College of Clinical Pharmacy appointed its first National Resident Advisory Committee and charged it with making recommendations on how residency programs should foster the development of their trainees as effective educators. Currently, many residency programs offer training in educational methods in the form of teaching certificate programs or additional rotations focused on teaching. However, these programs may not be formalized, and they vary in structure and quality. Moreover, many residency programs lack the resources to provide additional training in educational methods. Given the demand for pharmacists as educators, there is a need to train residents to teach. Therefore, the committee evaluated the literature and generated several strategies to aid in the development of pharmacy residents as educators. The committee recommends that programs should consider adopting principles and methods currently employed by successful teaching certificate programs, using distance‐learning technology, increasing training for faculty and preceptors in educational principles and methods, standardizing programs, and developing self‐learning and/or self‐assessment tools to train residents. As the need for pharmacists to serve as effective educators continues to grow, it will be important for institutions, programs, and professional organizations to invest time and resources in training pharmacy residents and defining a minimal set of criteria to ensure the quality of training.