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.

Creating an inclusive climate within pharmacy practice.

OBJECTIVE: Identify the impact of a brief, educational intervention on student pharmacist understanding of unconscious bias and its systemic effects; cultural humility; and commitment to change. METHODS: A pre-intervention survey, with questions utilizing a five-point Likert scale was embedded into the beginning of a series of online, interactive, educational modules addressing cultural humility, unconscious bias, and inclusive pharmacy practices. Third-year professional pharmacy students completed the course as part of their curriculum. At the conclusion of the modules, participants completed the post-intervention survey with the same set of questions, which was linked to the pre-intervention survey by a participant-generated code. Changes in means for the pre- and post-intervention cohorts were calculated and analyzed utilizing a Wilcoxon signed-rank test. Responses were also grouped dichotomously and evaluated using the McNemar test. RESULTS: Sixty-nine students completed both the pre- and post-intervention surveys. The greatest change on Likert scale questions was noted in understanding of cultural humility (+1.4). Much or complete confidence in being able to describe unconscious bias and cultural competence improved from 58% to 88% and 14% to 71%, respectively (P < .05). Although a trend toward positive change was noted, a significant impact was not observed for questions assessing understanding of their systemic effects and commitment to change. CONCLUSION: Interactive educational modules positively impact student understanding of unconscious bias and cultural humility. Further investigation is necessary to determine if continuous exposure to this and similar topics deepens student understanding of systemic impact and commitment to change.