Brighter horizons: The necessity of concentrated sponsorship targeted toward minoritized student pharmacists.

Due to the effects of structural racism, disproportionately lower numbers of Black, Hispanic or LatinX, American Indian, and Alaska Native students pursue a career in pharmacy and successfully matriculate into the profession. Despite these disparities being present for many years, little progress has been achieved in diversifying the pharmacy profession, resulting in a persistent lack of diversity within pharmacy leadership across employers and pharmacy organizations. Consistent with recent recommendations for improving diversity in pharmacy, the PharmGradWishlist (PGWL) initiative was created as a way for practicing pharmacists and organizations to provide direct financial sponsorship to racially and ethnically minoritized trainees to offset costs incurred during training and during the transition from student to practicing pharmacist. Many of these costs, such as residency and fellowship application fees, job interview travel costs, board exam and licensing fees, and moving expenses, are not typically subsidized by federal student funding. Offsetting these costs is an important way to reduce barriers to entering the profession and postgraduate training, the latter of which may be particularly important in trainees' pursuit of academic and leadership positions in pharmacy. The initial development and advertisement of the initiative occurred through social media and the grassroots efforts of the PGWL team, a group of 10 volunteer pharmacists from across the country, and resulted in generous donations from a small proportion of practicing pharmacists nationwide. It is now time for the profession as a whole to embrace the role of direct sponsorship in improving diversity in the profession. We call upon pharmacists and pharmacy organizations to advocate for and participate in financial sponsorship of racially and ethnically minoritized trainees and pharmacists as a way to increase diversity and promote health equity.

Considerations of gender-affirming care for transgender and gender-diverse youth.

In an effort to expedite the publication of articles, AJHP is posting manuscripts online as soon as possible after acceptance. Accepted manuscripts have been peer-reviewed and copyedited, but are posted online before technical formatting and author proofing. These manuscripts are not the final version of record and will be replaced with the final article (formatted per AJHP style and proofed by the authors) at a later time.

Implementation of pharmacist-led services for sexual and gender minorities: A multisite descriptive report.

PURPOSE: This paper compares and contrasts the implementation of pharmacist-led services for 3 different sexual and gender minority populations across California, Mississippi, and Florida. SUMMARY: Implementation of pharmacist-led services tailored to sexual and gender minorities may be a potential mechanism to address health disparities in these populations. Clinical pharmacists have the potential to provide care with cultural humility and improve health outcomes by optimizing medication regimens, reducing adverse drug events, enhancing medication acquisition, and improving medication adherence. CONCLUSION: The services provided by clinical pharmacists varied across sites and included management of gender-affirming hormone therapy, HIV antiretroviral medication adherence programming, primary care and chronic disease state management, and involvement in care related to mental health, psychiatry, and substance use as well as sexual health. Various legislative and regulatory barriers and differences in scope of practice for pharmacists were also identified. This paper advocates for the expansion of pharmacy-led services and the adoption of a culturally humble approach to patient care.

AACP faculty affairs standing committee report of strategies for faculty self-advocacy and promotion.

OBJECTIVES: The 2020-2021 American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy Faculty Affairs Standing Committee (FASC) was charged with identifying how faculty can self-advocate and promote themselves in a social influence context. FINDINGS: The FASC identified social influence and persuasion theories and strategies that can be used by faculty to initiate self-advocacy discussions and collaborations. Social influence and persuasion theories can provide a framework for research and scholarship or for beginning discussions regarding self-advocacy. SUMMARY: This FASC report describes the Committee charge, background information, and an overview of social influence theories and how these theories can be applied in academic pharmacy. The report concludes with a summary of issues for follow-up to the Committee's work.

Academic Activism: An Avenue to Action.

Until now, the term "advocacy" in pharmacy education and practice has focused on advocating for the advancement of the pharmacy profession or patient advocacy. With the 2022 Curricular Outcomes and Entrustable Professional Activities publication, the focus of advocacy has broadened to include advocacy for other causes that impact the health of patients. This commentary will highlight 3 pharmacy-focused organizations advocating for social issues impacting the health of patients as well as encourage members of the Academy to continue to expand personal social advocacy efforts.

Exploring standardized persons' expectations for practice-readiness among student pharmacists.

INTRODUCTION: Although patient expectations and preferences for healthcare selection have been described in the literature, there are no studies exploring what qualities and behaviors standardized persons (SPs) identify for the practice-ready pharmacist. This manuscript explores those qualities and behaviors within an objective structured clinical examination (OSCE) to determine SP interest in having the student as their pharmacy provider. METHODS: Using open-ended questions via a Qualtrics survey, SPs were asked to provide qualities and behaviors they associated with each of three practice-readiness rating levels. Using a constant comparative approach, the researchers coded the collected data over multiple stages to allow for authentic reflection and interpretation of the data. Coders used both inductive and deductive processes prior to establishing a unified understanding and corresponding codebook. RESULTS: A total of 55 SPs (61.1% response rate) participated in the survey, with the majority of participants working for the organization no more than two years (58.2%). Through the coding process, several major themes emerged across each of the three ratings including professionalism, patient-centered skills, communication, and preparation. Findings indicated the differences in ratings were influenced by the degree that students demonstrated each theme. CONCLUSIONS: Overall, these findings provide a better understanding of the qualities and behaviors SPs associate with student pharmacists completing OSCEs acting as practicing pharmacists. However, additional research is needed to determine if the same qualities and behaviors would be viewed as essential with SPs at other academic institutions.