CLeaR Fellows 2014 – Dr Trudi Aspden

A poverty simulation for second year Bachelor of Pharmacy students

Trudi is a Lecturer in Pharmacy Practice (School of Pharmacy). She began her academic career after working as a community pharmacist in the UK and New Zealand for 15 years. Her research and teaching interests reflect this and include how, when and where to introduce cultural competence teaching into the BPharm curriculum; and how community pharmacy may reduce health disparities. She was recently awarded the 2013 Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences’ Butland Award for Innovation in Teaching for introducing two cross-cultural simulations into the BPharm programme.

Trudi notes the tension between research and teaching, and that generating research outputs from the Fellowship would be useful. Cultural competence is her field for teaching and research; it relates to seeing things through different lenses (as the Fellows will do) and managing difference (not necessarily based on ethnicity). Cultural competence was introduced as a standard for Pharmacists in 2012; it can be said to be all about power.

Regarding Trudi’s perspective on the Fellowships and “Rethinking the Classroom,” she is not aware of what’s happening in other schools within the Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences, so she met her Associate Dean (Education) to get the Faculty perspective.

Trudi is considering setting up a community of practice, face-to-face or online to talk about what the Fellows are doing. She will explore what leverage the Fellowship can give to individuals in order to support the dissemination of their work and gain Faculty buy in. Can conversations with senior and other staff be framed within a community of practice?

Trudi welcomes the opportunity to share ideas and different perspectives – “We’re teaching students cultural competence. How do we do that?”