Incorporation of a Stop the Bleed Course Into a Pharmacy Curriculum

Introduction: Awareness of The American College of Surgeons (ACS) STOP the BLEED program, remains limited among potential participants, including students at health science colleges. This study hypothesizes that incorporation of a STOP the BLEED course into a Doctor of Pharmacy curriculum is a viable mechanism to deliver training/certification to a large cohort and will result in knowledge of hemostasis and comfort with/willingness to respond to real-life, bleeding events.


Methods: Pharmacy students in a first-year skills course completed STOP the BLEED training in their first aid and skin care module. Students completed a baseline knowledge quiz. Quiz Completion unlocked a 30-minute prelab didactic video available from STOP the BLEED. Confirmation of video completion was uploaded to the course management site as part of Stop the Bleed certification. An instruction lab, which included student practice and demonstration, and instructor sign off was conducted by STOP the BLEED certified instructors. Students successfully completing the didactic and hands on portions were awarded STOP the BLEED certification. The baseline quiz questions were incorporated into an asynchronous non-graded post lab quiz. Module Faculty were surveyed to identify design/methodology elements that worked well and opportunities for module improvement.


Results: The course trained 239 students. Pre- and post-survey response rates were 100% (239/239) and 16% (38/239), respectively. Prior to the course, 82% (31/38) were unaware of the STOP the BLEED program. Post course knowledge of and comfort with stopping bleeding was high and aligned with previous courses taught at the institution and the literature. Faculty indicated that there was adequate time and space to complete STOP the BLEED training and that training ran smoothly. Suggestions for future courses included streamlining certificate verification and distribution, limiting questions during sign-off, and discussion board posting for unanswered questions. The faculty reported that student feedback was positive.


Conclusions: Offering a STOP the BLEED course taught by STOP the BLEED trained instructors in a skills lab course using the described methodology was an effective way to provide STOP the BLEED certification to a large cohort of first year pharmacy students.