The mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through one's thoughts, experience, and senses.
Knowledge and cognitive skills: Acquired skills that reflect an individual's ability to think. Cognitive skills include verbal and spatial abilities, concentration, memory, perception, reasoning, planning and organisation, flexible thinking, and problem solving.
- Introduction
Consistent and effective knowledge and cognitive skills must be demonstrated to provide safe and competent pharmacy services. - Description of inherent requirement
Student demonstrates:
- Capacity to locate appropriate and relevant information
- Ability to process information relevant to practice
- Ability to integrate and implement knowledge in practice in a timely manner
- Ability to gather, comprehend and organise information, such as taking a medication history from a patient and formulating a provisional diagnosis and a treatment plan
- Ability to integrate theory and knowledge from various sources, such as using knowledge of anatomy and drug action in order to undertake quality use of medicines
- Ability to accurately recall information without reference, such as patient observations, a summary of clinical details for handover, any relevant information gathered from a patient before dispensing a prescription.
- Justification of inherent requirement
Safe and effective delivery of pharmaceutical care is based on comprehensive knowledge that must be sourced, understood, and applied appropriately. - Adjustments
Adjustments must ensure that a clear demonstration of knowledge and cognitive skills is not compromised or impeded. - Exemplars:
- Ability to conceptualise and use appropriate knowledge in response to academic assessment items
- Applying knowledge of theory, research evidence, policy, and procedures in the practice settings
- Engaging in scientific and clinical reasoning, such as making appropriate clinical recommendations regarding medication therapy
- Engaging in rational and ethical reasoning, such as considering patient autonomy and preferences in chronic care and palliative treatment
- Developing options and assessing and comparing their respective merits, such as using evidence-based practice knowledge to prioritize treatment options for a patient with a complicated medical history.
Literacy (language): This relates to the ability to acquire, understand, and apply information in a scholarly manner.
- Introduction
Competent literacy skills, in English, are essential to provide safe and effective delivery of care. - Description of inherent requirement
Student demonstrates:
- The ability to acquire information and accurately convey appropriate, effective messages
- The ability to read and comprehend a range of literature and information
- The capacity to understand and implement academic conventions to construct written text in a scholarly manner.
- Justification of inherent requirement
The ability to acquire information and to accurately convey messages is fundamental to ensure safe and effective assessment, treatment, and delivery of care. The ability to read, decode, interpret, and comprehend multiple sources of information is fundamental for safe and effective delivery care. - Adjustments
Adjustments to address literacy issues must demonstrate a capacity to effectively acquire, comprehend, apply and communicate accurate information. - Exemplars:
- Demonstrating the ability to convey a spoken instruction to a client and communicating effectively in a clinical setting
- Paraphrasing, summarising, and referencing in accordance with appropriate academic conventions in written assignments
- Producing accurate, concise, and clear pharmaceutical documentation which meets legal requirements
- Reading and comprehending information presented in a variety of standard formats, such as handwritten clinical notes, test results, small font writing on ampoules, graphical formats such as charts and accessing computerised information, prescriptions, and handwritten notes from prescribers.
Numeracy: This relates to the ability to understand and work with numbers.
- Introduction
Competent and accurate numeracy skills are essential for safe and effective care. - Description of inherent requirement
Student demonstrate an ability to interpret and correctly apply data, measurement and numerical criteria. - Justification of inherent requirement
Competent application of numeracy skills is essential in pharmacy to facilitate the safe and effective delivery of pharmaceutical care. - Adjustments
Adjustments must demonstrate a capacity to interpret and apply concepts and processes appropriately in a timely, accurate and effective manner. - Exemplars:
- Recording accurate measurements in client notes
- Accurately undertaking arithmetic calculations, such as completing dosage and pharmaceutical calculations.