Introduction: The CPPE Pharmacy Conversations podcast series was launched by the Centre for Pharmacy Postgraduate Education (CPPE) in September 2024 to address the evolving educational needs of pharmacy professionals in England. This accessible learning platform features monthly, 45 to 60 minute episodes on topics essential to professional growth, including leadership, antimicrobial stewardship, patient safety, deprescribing, and genomics.
Methods: The podcast series employs an interview-based format with subject matter experts to deliver real-world insights on pressing topics and challenges within pharmacy. Promotion leverages CPPE’s communication channels, including newsletters and social media, while listener engagement is tracked through Spotify analytics. A feedback mechanism via online forms invites reviews, guiding content improvement. However, evaluating the educational impact of this novel format presents challenges, as listener metrics and qualitative feedback alone may not fully capture learning outcomes or application in practice.
Results: Initial responses indicate strong engagement with positive qualitative feedback, with listeners reporting benefits to their continuing professional development (CPD). While preliminary data suggest high engagement rates and relevance, evaluating long-term educational impact remains complex, as it is difficult to directly measure changes in knowledge application or practice improvements solely through engagement metrics and self-reported feedback.
Conclusion: CPPE Pharmacy Conversations shows promise as a CPD tool, promoting professional growth and knowledge sharing among pharmacy professionals. Despite the challenges of evaluating this format, the series highlights the potential of podcasts as flexible learning resources. Ongoing refinement of feedback mechanisms and analytic strategies will be key in ensuring that future podcast content effectively supports lifelong learning needs and can be more accurately evaluated in terms of real-world impact on professional practice.

Introduction: As online education becomes more prevalent, team-based learning (TBL), a collaborative and active learning approach, is increasingly utilized in digital environments. Despite the advantages of online learning, challenges such as technological issues, limited face-to-face interaction, and maintaining student motivation persist. TBL can help address these challenges and improve the effectiveness of online learning. This study aims to evaluate pharmacy students' satisfaction, engagement, and perspectives regarding online TBL in the Clinical Pharmacy Practice course, focusing on its impact on student learning outcomes.
Methods: The study was conducted with pharmacy students enrolled in the Clinical Pharmacy Practice course during the second semester of the 2023–2024 academic year at the Future University in Egypt. Students' perceptions and performance were assessed using a structured questionnaire and the Team-Based Learning Student Assessment Instrument (TBL-SAI). Data were collected via Google Forms and analyzed using SPSS version 29.0.2 and Microsoft Excel. The Kolmogorov-Smirnov and Shapiro-Wilk tests were applied to assess the normality of the data, and non-parametric tests were used for non-normally distributed data, with a significance level set at p < 0.05.
Results: A total of 50 students responded to the survey. Of these, 76% reported higher levels of satisfaction, a better understanding of the material, and increased participation in TBL sessions compared to traditional methods. Over 60% of students recommended increasing the proportion of TBL sessions in the curriculum to enhance student engagement and overall learning outcomes. Students also preferred the online format due to its flexibility, accessibility, and convenience.
Conclusion: The study demonstrates that online TBL is an effective and engaging method for teaching clinical pharmacy practice, leading to improved learning outcomes and higher student satisfaction. Based on these positive findings, students suggested expanding the use of TBL in the curriculum, particularly in the online format, for its adaptability and accessibility.

Introduction: Simulated patient (SP) role-plays in pharmacy education are often enacted by student peers or tutors; trained actors may provide more authentic learning experiences. This study involved engaging and training actors to enact co-designed psychosis-related scenarios to assess pharmacy students, post-Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) training. The aim of this study was to explore actors’ perspectives of being trained for this purpose and participating in the role-plays.
Methods: Actors were recruited via social media and an acting agency. Actors were briefed and trained, rehearsing scenarios with two MHFA-trained pharmacists from the research team who had led the scenario co-design process. Final year pharmacy students completed MHFA training (n=209). Post-MHFA training, all students attended a SP workshop, where students volunteered to engage in role-plays of psychosis-related scenarios with trained actors. Role-plays were observed by student peers, tutors, and mental health consumer educators (MHCEs). Focus groups were conducted with actors and transcribed verbatim. Transcripts were inductively thematically analysed.
Results: Ten actors were trained and participated in 86 role-plays between May-November 2022. Two focus groups were conducted with actors (n=7) in 2022. Actors shared favourable experiences of briefing and training with research team members. Actors described how they prepared for their roles, harnessing personal experiences to connect with their character. Actors voiced conflict they felt between purely performing and attempting to assist students navigate the role-plays. Suggestions to improve the actor training process included involving MHCEs in rehearsals and providing additional resources to guide self-directed preparation.
Conclusion: Actors appreciated the training process and support provided by the research team, also sharing personal experiences of preparation, performance, and suggestions to improve future experiences for SP actors enacting mental health scenarios. Future research exploring the impact of trained SP actors on pharmacy students’ confidence and skills in providing mental health support is warranted.

Introduction: The Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education (ACPE) is the agency responsible for accreditation professional degree program in pharmacy in the United States and for the development of accreditation standards which define minimum levels of educational quality. This work describes the Standards 2025 development process and the resulting changes to align accreditation standards with learner needs and current pharmacy practice in the United States.
Methods: The Standards 2025 development process began January 2021, where communities of interest invited to provide written comments via email and/or participate in a web-based survey. The initial survey garnered 138 responses, and additional feedback was collected via emails, multiple town halls, and an additional web-based survey distributed following the release of draft standards in January of 2024. Finally, nine open hearings were conducted for members of pharmacy professional organizations in Spring 2024. Over 160 pages of comments were considered, with a final discussion, review, and approval of Standards 2025 completed by the ACPE Board at their June 2024 meeting.
Results: Standards 2025 introduces significant changes, including: reducing the number of standards was reduced from twenty-five to seven, the clarification of guidance documents and supporting materials to provide programs with information necessary to address key elements and monitoring requirements, increased emphasis on the incorporation and assessment of educational outcomes identified in the Curricular Outcomes and Entrustable Professional Activities (COEPA) 2022 document, and emphasis on the importance of valid and reliable assessment mechanisms to enhance educational quality, with assessment outcome data used to guide program improvements (i.e., curriculum revisions).
Conclusions: Standards 2025 were developed using environmental factors and feedback from interested parties across the pharmacy education landscape to optimize accreditation standards. Emphasis on COEPA 2022 and assessment of programmatic outcomes support both program improvements as well as learner competence related to established entrustable professional activities.