Abstract:
The increasing complexity of healthcare and pharmacists’
expanding clinical and social roles are further exposing the shortcomings of
traditional classroom-based pharmaceutical education.
Consequently, despite efforts to make programmes more responsive to
industry needs, graduate readiness for real-world practice remains a concern and
points to the need for models that systematically integrate learning into actual
professional activity.
The purpose of this paper is to analyse the theoretical, pedagogical and
organisational arguments for introducing the dual concept of pharmaceutical
education and, drawing on international and national experience, to outline
realistic prospects, challenges and possible models for integrating dual elements
into pharmacy programme content. The review indicates a strong international
trend towards practice-based, competency-driven and experiential learning
models in pharmacy; however, explicitly dual programmes remain rare,
particularly in Ukraine.
It shows how international standards for pharmacy educators and the
pharmacy workforce, in conjunction with national competency models, constitute
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a theoretical framework on which university-based training can be aligned with
workplace requirements. The findings demonstrate that clearly defined
competences for educational and practice supervisors, supported by well-
structured supervision, are crucial if workplace placements are to become genuine
learning environments rather than mere time on site.
Evidence from community and hospital pharmacy suggests that the
structured application of workplace-based assessments, accompanied by focused
feedback and graduated autonomy, can firmly link everyday performance with
competence outcomes. Comparative studies of WBAs and OSCEs indicate that
integrating these approaches allows assessment to be both authentic in evaluating
real practice and sufficiently standardised as an objective measure of clinical
competence.
The article also highlights organisational and regulatory challenges such as
weak legal frameworks, limited experience in long-term university practice
partnerships and variability in quality assurance alongside emerging solutions
including hybrid and virtual forms of experiential training piloted during the
COVID-19 pandemic. In summary, dual pharmaceutical education is a promising
but still underdeveloped approach that can be successfully implemented only
under conditions of a coherent competence-based model, ongoing quality
improvement, robust monitoring and assessment structures, and appropriately
designed national pilot projects.
