Using Technology to Enhance Teaching and Learning in Pharmacy Education

It was a privilege to serve as guest editors in Pharmacy for the Special Issue ‘Technology-Enhanced Pharmacy Teaching and Learning Strategies’. The outbreak of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and resulting COVID-19 pandemic has taken a unique toll on the global community. In addition to the threat the virus presented to overall public health, countries and communities were forced to adapt to a new paradigm in an attempt to reduce the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. These mitigation strategies required significant and sudden change, particularly in education. While online-based learning is not entirely foreign to students prior to the pandemic, teachers and learners were forced to adapt existing pedagogical approaches to facilitate learning without physical proximity. This was challenging for health profession schools and colleges around the world with experiential education being particularly impacted. Given the unique responsibility healthcare professions have to help to overcome the pandemic, it was critical that these institutions continue their mission while reducing risk of infection and helping patients obtain necessary treatment, testing, and vaccination against novel infection disease.