Impact of Novel Tools for Blended and Competency‐Based Learning in Veterinary Compounding and Prescribing

According to the European Association of Establishments for Veterinary Education (EAEVE), a graduate of veterinary medicine should be able to prescribe and dispense "medicines correctly and responsibly in accordance with legislation and latest guidance" (2019). In Germany, veterinarians can dispense drugs from their in-practice pharmacy, which makes dispensing and compounding a higher educational priority than in other EU member states. This report describes recent efforts to improve the teaching of relevant first-day skills in compounding and prescribing through active learning approaches such as blended learning and online learning resources, including flipped classroom settings and cloud-based documents to practice prescribing at one of the German Schools of Veterinary Medicine. We assessed how the introduction of blended and case-based learning and quizzes impacted learning outcomes and grades over the last 5 years, from 2019 to 2023. This timeframe included regular pre-pandemic teaching operations, remote teaching during the pandemic, and a return to in-person classes. Pandemic online teaching did not lead to worse outcomes in practical or theoretical knowledge; online tutorials for compounding improved student performance significantly during the pandemic, though performance declined after returning to in-person teaching until quiz-based extra points were introduced in 2023. Doubling prescription seminar time did not improve outcomes in 2020, but introducing a cloud-based prescription exercise in 2021 led to better results, and overall grades in pharmaceutical and narcotics law have significantly improved since 2020. Novel tools for blended and case-based learning improved all outcomes significantly and were positively evaluated by the students.