(39) Development of a Summer Bridge Program to Enhance Knowledge Retention in a Professional Pharmacy Curriculum

Objective : The purpose of this pilot program was to develop an internally generated, co-curricular program for enhancing recall of critical and fundamental concepts through the summer months to bridge the gap between didactic courses.

Methods: Students going into the 2nd and 3rd professional year were eligible to participate in this voluntary Summer Bridge Program, which was conducted over a 4-6-week period during the months of July and August. GroupMe was utilized to disseminate 10-15 activities utilizing a variety of platforms (ie 7Tap, Quizlet, YouTube). Activities were designed to be fun, interactive, and repeatable to maximize engagement by the students. Students were surveyed about their level of participation, perceptions of the program, and suggestions for improvements.

Results: In the 2022-2023 and 2023-2024 academic years, 95% of students signed up for the program through GroupMe. Of the students that responded to the survey (n=88), 85% stated that the program met or exceeded their expectations and 95% found the program useful in preparing for the upcoming therapeutic modules. Students preferred interactive platforms (Quizlet, 7Tap) over videos and weblinks.

Conclusions: Based on student feedback, plans include continuing the program and making the following improvements: starting the program earlier to remove the compacted feel, adding additional interactive platforms, enhancing interaction with students over GroupMe, and incorporating more clinically focused information and activities.