Pharmacy schools as expert communities of practice? A proposal to radically restructure pharmacy education to optimize learning

It is proposed that if pharmacy education is reconceptualized within a "communities of practice" framework, a collaborative educational strategy is revealed that can help the profession and its educational institutions deal successfully with many social and professional issues that have led to a foundering sense of shared identity and meaning. In particular, communities of practice will lead to increasing student and pharmacist expertise, expand and enrich the scientific basis for the paradigm of pharmaceutical care, and rationalize the division of labor and faculty workload in the professional program, significantly increasing faculty satisfaction and retention.