TITLE:
Literature Review: “COVID-19 Pandemic: Where to Pharmacy Education?”
AUTHORS:
Pias Tomupei Musiza, Abubaker Qutieshat
KEYWORDS:
COVID-19, Pharmacy Education, Online Teaching, Quality Assessment, Online e-Learning
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Access Library Journal,
Vol.9 No.7,
July
27,
2022
ABSTRACT: The COVID-19 pandemic has greatly altered the way humanity lives in every scope of our lives. The socio-economic impact of lockdown measures is yet to be fully understood and measured. Educational systems have been disrupted thus affecting the approach and quality assessment of learning methodologies. The training of pharmacists is necessary for the discharge of an efficient and effective pharmaceutical service in light of heightened demand due to increased morbidity due to COVID-19 has been compromised. The literature review focuses on the corpus of work on online learning methodologies in general and their application and impact with respect to pharmacy education. A key attempt is made to trace the genesis, application, and challenges faced by academic institutions as they migrate onto an online pharmacy education platform to continue producing quality pharmacists effectively trained to meet today’s pharmaceutical service challenges in light of the COVID-19 pandemic and the future. The literature review article further evaluates the impact of such strategy on curriculum development and how enduring strategies can be formulated to enhance quality assessment and education. The paper engages with the various qualitative and quantitative approaches employed in the research process and their relevance in unearthing lasting views and solutions to the problem. The study concluded that migration to online pharmacy education had unique challenges for both students and academic staff hence the need for developing policies and systems that address these issues. Furthermore, it is necessary to develop support programs for ongoing initiatives. There is a compelling need for further research study into alternative content delivery systems.