NONPF 39th Annual Meeting
Creative Approaches for Teaching Advanced Pharmacology to Family Nurse Practitioner (FNP) Students in an Online Course
In formulating the discussion questions for an online course in Advanced Pharmacology, faculty are often searching for prompts that will produce varied responses while covering necessary information in pharmacology. Our program put Advanced Pharmacology online and found the following exercises encouraged more active learning. Students were encouraged to write their own case studies on gastrointestinal illness and come up with alternative diagnoses and treatment after being given a “mad-libs” type fill in the blank scenario. They also wrote a case study of a patient with Gastrointestinal Reflux Disease or GERD including presenting symptoms, risk factors, patient teaching on non pharmacological treatment, OTC and prescription medications.
In order to stimulate learning in this area the following prompt was given to students:
Please go to your favorite pharmacy section in your local store and look at what is available for OTC products for dermatitis, anti-itch preparations, anti-infective ointments and allergy products. Pick a condition and describe what products are available and how much they cost. What are alternative prescription products for this condition?
A common complaint of preceptors of their new FNP students is that they do not know the correct way to write a prescription. To provide them practice in this necessary skill, discussion prompts include having students write out prescriptions using fictionalized patient and provider names for various conditions. Creative approaches are needed by nursing faculty to teach content rich areas such as Advance Pharmacology in order to train their FNP students in the art of prescribing. The incorporation of games into online learning can also be a motivator for learners and help provide some variety to the online format. These pedagogical approaches are supported by the need for Family Nurse Practitioner programs to emphasize disease management and health promotion in their curriculum, as well as the need to vary the type of assignments given in online courses to promote more active learning.
