Peer-mentoring workshop for continuous professional development

Objective. To develop a Professional Skills Enhancement Workshop (PSEW) to assist practitioners who require skills training to maintain competency and meet new standards of practice. Participants for this workshop were identified as those pharmacists who completed the peer review assessment process and who did not meet standards of practice expectations. Design. The full-day workshop consists of a half-day introduction to use of clinical drug information resources and approaches to addressing practice-based questions. The second part of the workshop introduces participants to the use of structured patient-interviewing techniques to elicit information using standardized patients. Participants in the workshop completed self-assessments as well as course evaluations. Subsequent to completion of the course, participants rechallenged the peer review assessment process, a test of their clinical skills consisting of a written test of clinical knowledge and an objective structured clinical examination (OSCE), to provide objective evidence of skills acquisition. Assessment. Over 90% of participants "agreed" or "strongly agreed" that the PSEW was helpful in reacquainting them with current standards of professional practice. Sixty-nine percent of participants who completed the peer review assessment rechallenge process following completion of the course were able to meet standards of practice expectations. Conclusions. In developing continuous professional development programs, first identifying the needs of all practitioners is essential. The PSEW provides one model for skills training for practitioners who, for a variety of reasons, may not have maintained the expected level of competency.