In an ‘ultra-aged’ society, pharmacists who understand elderly people are needed as members of medical treatment teams. At our university, there is an educational program with extracurricular activities in which a pharmacy student interacts with elderly people at a health care facility for the elderly which is affiliated with an attached pharmacy. In this study, in order to examine the effect of the pharmaceutical education provided by this program, a questionnaire consisting of eight important issues and 39 minor issues relevant to elderly people was created, and self-evaluation of the student who worked two or more times in the health care facility for the elderly in 2006 was performed.
 Though the students didn’t felt that they were sufficiently educated about the elderly in their class, they understood the necessity of a pharmaceutical education related to the elderly. They also understood more about the elderly through this activity. Upper classmen had higher scores on the self-evaluations for all minor issues than did lower classmen. They immediately were able to learn about certain issues by experiencing them at the health care facility for the elderly, and needed prior learning for other points. Therefore, this program needs to consist of short-term activity, step-by-step and continuous activities. A big effect is expected by relating studying at the university to learning through experience. Therefore, we thought this program would be effective as the educational curriculum.

研修レポート