Developing Allies: Preparing Pharmacy Students to Practice with Cultural and Structural Humility.

Objectives: The COEPA learning outcome of Cultural and Structural Humility (Ally) was updated causing programs to evaluate how this content is included. The authors reviewed relevant literature published within the past ten years (2014-2024) and provided a summary, and relevant recommendations, as well as resources.

Findings: There were calls to action within the Academy for programs to develop a holistic programmatic approach to developing students' cultural and structural humility. Current shortcomings identified were that most programs: incorporated related competencies into their curriculum at the introduction level; lacked intentional development of related skills and behaviors, instead focusing on knowledge and attitudes; seldomly used validated, reliable, standardized assessments; and allowed this work to fall on a few "experts" rather than all faculty and preceptors.

Summary: Programs should aim for a holistic approach to prepare graduates to practice with cultural and structural humility, which should begin with creating structures to support it, such as appointment of an administrator or a diversity, equity, and inclusion committee. Integration of ally content should be intentional, spiraled, with mapping of competencies across didactic, experiential, and co-curriculum and across all levels of learning to ensure development of knowledge, skills, attitudes, and behaviors. Students should have multiple assessment opportunities, including formative and summative, and programs should use standardized, valid and reliable assessment tools. Intentional development of all faculty, preceptors, and students is critical for success. Institutions are encouraged to share their initiatives with the Academy.

Learning objectives: After reading the article, readers will be able to do the following as it relates to the Ally COEPA outcome.