Pharmacy students’ learnings and reflections to inform the development of the ‘Working Respectfully with Aboriginal Peoples’ (WRAP) Toolkit

ABSTRACT

Delivering effective healthcare requires healthcare professionals to reflect on their own cultural background and their patient’s cultural needs. Culture is a determinant of health and if not considered, negative health outcomes can result. This is of particular importance when working with Aboriginal communities and caring for Aboriginal people whose views have been excluded from healthcare models, funding, and policy. Non-indigenous healthcare professionals, such as pharmacy students, benefit from understanding Aboriginal peoples’ healthcare needs and models of holistic healthcare, as well as reflecting on their own cultures, assumptions, and experiences on placement. This article explores students’ views to inform the development of a Toolkit to support students’ learning prior to engaging in placements in Aboriginal communities. The study involved collaboration with students, Aboriginal community members, educators experienced in Indigenous health and allied health education. This paper is within a series exploring the development and evaluation of the ‘Working Respectfully with Aboriginal People (WRAP): Student Toolkit’.

KEYWORDS:

• Pharmacy education
• indigenous studies
• indigenous environments
• cultural learning
• cultural competence

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to acknowledge the two academic colleagues, namely Professor Megan Williams (MW), University of Sydney and Ms Sally Fitzpatrick (SF), Western Sydney University for their valued contribution to the cultural learning modules (MW) and workshops (MW, SF) as well as their contribution to facilitating the focus group discussion. Thanks, are extended to colleagues Ken Zulumovski (KZ) and Catherine Jackson (CJ) from Gamarada Life Healing and Training Enterprise who contributed to the cultural awareness workshop. Thanks, are also extended to student participants.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This study was funded by the Maridulu Budyari Gumal Sydney Partnership for Health, Education, Research and Enterprise (SPHERE) Aboriginal Health and Wellbeing Clinical Academic Group-Small Grant Program [PRO1040052].

Notes on contributors

Cherie Lucas

Dr Cherie Lucas, Senior Lecturer, pharmacist and Clinical Education Manager (Clinical Placements) for the Master of Pharmacy degree, University of Technology Sydney, Australia. Her research expertise includes reflective practice. She has led teams in developing tools, assessment strategies and curricula resources to enhance students’ reflective capacity. Dr Lucas’ work and collaboration in the area of reflective practice has been awarded two international awards: Best Full paper, International Learning Analytics and Knowledge Conference (LAK 17), Canada, 2017; Teaching Innovation Award, International Pharmacy Education Symposium, Italy 2017; and is the recipient of two University Teaching awards: 2018 UTS Learning and Teaching Citation honour as Project lead; 2019 Australian Award for University Teaching(AAUT) Citation- for Outstanding Contribution to Student Learning.

Mariyam Aly

Mariyam Aly is a community pharmacist and PhD student at the University of Technology Sydney, supervised by Dr Cherie Lucas. She has extensive community pharmacy experience in Australia and the United Kingdom. Her research interests include pharmacy education, community pharmacy services and public health.

Tamara Power

Dr. Tamara Power is a Senior Research Fellow in the Faculty of Health at the University of Technology Sydney. She is a descendent of the Wiradjuri people. Tamara has led multiple teaching and learning projects and been awarded citations and awards for innovative teaching methods, including a team, Australian Award for University Teaching (AAUT) Citation- for Outstanding Contribution to Student Learning, focused on developing Indigenous professional capabilities. Tamara’s research interests include diabetes in Aboriginal communities, cultural safety and racism in healthcare and undergraduate education. Professional affiliations include the Congress of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Nurses and Midwives (CATSINaM) and the Australian Diabetes Educators Association (ADEA).