Teaching cultural competency through a pharmacy skills and applications course series.

OBJECTIVE: To incorporate cultural competency in a Pharmacy Skills and Application course series and assess the level of cultural competency in students who did and did not complete the courses.

DESIGN: The course series focused on cultural competency throughout the PharmD curriculum and included such activities as self-reflection, lecture, diversity service-learning, case studies, and discussion.

ASSESSMENT: The Inventory for Assessing the Process of Cultural Competence Among Healthcare Professionals-Revised (IAPCC-R) was used to measure cultural competence in 2 cohorts: the last class preceding implementation of the new course series and the first class after its implementation. Overall scores between the 2 cohorts were not significantly different; however, 2 subscale scores were significantly higher among students who completed the course series: cultural skills (p = 0.021) and cultural encounters (p = 0.048).

CONCLUSIONS: The Pharmacy Skills and Application course series appears to improve some aspects of cultural competence in pharmacy students, but may not be sufficient to elicit change in all areas.