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In Japan, many health professionals do not seem to have adequate understandings of the competencies and specialties of other professionals. The competencies of pharmacists are especially overlooked because their expected roles have been changing rapidly in recent years and may vary depending on context in various settings. Due to this lack of understanding physicians themselves often perform therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM), and pharmacists sometimes suggest unnecessary prescription proposals to physicians without considering their treatment plans. Although "community and hospital pharmacist collaboration" has been emphasized for many years, many pharmacists in both settings still do not understand one another's situation. How can we make pharmacists' competencies appropriately understood and respected by other health professionals? What should we do to promote interprofessional work (IPW) with more incorporation of pharmacists so as to pursue patient/client/family-centered care? The key to success in IPW seems to lie in the answers to these questions.

Background The purpose of this study was to highlight concerns with the current pharmacy practice program and suggest aspects for improvement. A further aim of the study was to enhance the educational effects of the program, from the students’ point of view. Methods We surveyed 1,607 pharmacy students in Japan who had completed the pharmacy practice program in either 2010 or 2011. The students completed a self-descriptive questionnaire comprising 48 questions examining their experience of the pharmacy practice program. Results For community pharmacy practice, four factors were extracted through exploratory analysis: “satisfactory learning (pharmacy),” “support system of the university,” “creation and clarification of the training plan,” and “dialogue with patients.” When comparing the mean values for each of the four factors between 2011 and 2012, the 2012 group scored significantly higher (p

Objective. To implement an advanced objective structured clinical examination (OSCE) in the curriculum and to evaluate Japanese pharmacy students’ skills in physical assessment such as measuring pulse and blood pressure, and assessing heart, lung, and intestinal sounds. Design. An advanced OSCE was implemented in a hospital pharmacy seminar as a compulsory subject. We programmed patient simulators with 21 different patient cases in which normal and abnormal physiological conditions were produced. The virtual patients were then used to evaluate the physical assessment skills of fifth-year pharmacy students. Assessment. Significant differences were observed between the average of all the detailed evaluations and the mean results for the following skills: pulse measurement, blood pressure measurement, deflating the cuff at a rate of 2-3 mmHg/sec, listening to heart sounds, and listening to lung sounds. Conclusion. Administering an advanced OSCE using virtual patients was an effective way of assessing pharmacy students’ skills in a realistic setting. Several areas in which pharmacy students require further training were identified.