Losses and gains in experiential education in a university pharmacy in Brazil: Lessons from a pandemic

The abrupt interruption of planned activities at the University Pharmacy (UP) in the Federal University of Santa Catarina forced a rapid change in routine services with the aim of ensuring continued access to medicines. Since March 2020, the UP has not been able to provide dispensing services or consultations inside its facility because of safety concerns around the spread of COVID-19. Internships are now dedicated to management tasks such as preparing documents to advise patients about particular medicines' utilisation. Virtual communication with the patients was established. This allowed students to be put in charge of keeping in touch with special groups of patients by telephone to track health outcomes, COVID-19 symptoms, and other particular needs. The Global Competency Framework and the National Pharmaceutical Education Guidelines were used as guides to develop the study. Three domains were affected by gains and losses: organisation and management competencies, professional/personal competencies, and pharmaceutical care.