Bringing students to their profession and the profession to students through competency standards

New medicines come to market daily and health services continually evolve, consequently knowledge in the health disciplines acquired at university quickly outdates. The public demands that health practitioners maintain their competence to practice. Amongst other purposes, a profession's competency standards are an essential guide for an individual practitioner's life-long learning. The purpose of this research was to explore whether the National Competency Standards Framework for Pharmacists in Australia (NCS) informed pharmacy education and then to trial an approach in one Australian pharmacy program which directed students specifically to the competency standards. The research aimed to determine familiarity with the NCS amongst the profession, educators and students; to compare how competency standards inform curriculum design in Australia with how they are used internationally; and to establish the current barriers and enablers to the use of NCS in pharmacy education in Australia. These findings inspired the design of an educational intervention entitled the 'Traffic Light Report', trialled at one Australian university with undergraduate pharmacy students. The Traffic Light Report (TLR) was designed to 'bring students to their profession and the profession to students through Competency Standards.'