Office of Experiential Programs: Static References
Explanation of programs
The University of Florida College of Pharmacy Office of Experiential
Programs administers the experiential component of both the Pharm.D. and
the B.S. curriculum, as well as the collection of practice hours by students
to prepare for licensure. There are three basic types of experiences that
are part of the program:
- Internship
- Internship is the global term encompassing all experiences
gained by persons who are registered for pharmacy school or
who have graduated pharmacy school, but are not yet licensed.
Internships are practice experiences under the direct supervision
of a pharmacist to ensure the student has had adequate real
world experiences prior to graduation. Interns in the state
of Florida must have a internship license from the Board of
Pharmacy. This license can only be issued to graduates, or
students who are currently registered in a pharmacy school.
- The internship program for the state of Florida has changed
as of January 2001. A student who has graduated from
an accreditied college of pharmacy in the US no longer needs
to have ANY additional hours outside of their course work.
The experience they gain from their Indtroductory Practice
Experiences and Advanced Practice Expereinces is deemed sufficient.
- Introductory Practice Experiences (Practicum I -IV)
- Practicum
I and II
- There are three parts to Practicum I& II that last
entire first year of pharmacy school. Keeping Families
Healthy, Public Health, and Shadowing.
- The purpose of Keeping Families Healthy is to introduce
the students to patient interviewing and physical assessment
skills, as well as patient behavior. Students are divided
into interdispplinary teams of three students from the Colleges
of Medicine, Nursing and Pharmacy. Each team is assigned
a volunteer family fro the community. The partnered
team has 4 structured experiences with their family that include
various health histories and physical assessments. After
each visit the students have a discussion period with their
instructor and several other teams to discuss the outcome
of their visit. Once the interviews were completed each
pharmacy-nursing student team prepare a written and oral report
detailing their activities with their volunteer. The
written report is reviewed by the faculty and then presented
to the volunteer at the final meeting.
- The Public Health component is coordinated with multiple
pharmacies in the greater area around each campus. The
purpose of this Practicum is to introduce the student to the
concept of public health education, as well as reinforce communication
skills. Students are required to participate in four
health screening or health education experiences during the
course of the year. These screenings are held at one
of the local pharmacies. The types of programs are Osteoporosis
Risk Assessment, Diabetes Risk Assessment, Hypertension screening,
Poison Information, and Brown Bag Sessions. (The Brown Bag
sites vary from year to year) Before each type of screening
the students are instructed in the appropriate tools necessary.
Students are required to document their activities.
- Each student is required to "shadow" a senior student on
and advanced practice expereince once each semester.
Students must submit a one page report of their observations
during these experiences.
- Practicum
III and IV
- Practicum III and IV are introductory practice experiences
for second professional year pharmacy students. The
purpose of these two courses is to give the students their
first structured experience in community and institutional
practice. Pharmacists act as the preceptor and are their
guide through this experience. Second professional year
students have completed their first year of pharmacy school
and will be in classes for their second year during these
Practicum courses. The goals of this course are to continue
to expose the student to pharmacy as a profession; to reinforce
and strengthen their understanding of the role the pharmacist
plays in the health of the patient; to help them apply the
knowledge that they are acquiring in their didactic coursework
by allowing them to use that knowledge for the benefit of
real patients; and to allow them to practice the technical
skills necessary to be a successful pharmacist. Students are
divided into teams with each member of a team having responsibility
for one day of the week at their Practicum Site. Half
of the student class is in community pharmacies and half are
in an institutional setting for the fall semester (Practicum
III) In the spring semester (Practicum IV) their areas
of practice are reversed. Students have a series of
competencies which must be met during the course of each semester.
They are graded on the completion of their competencies, attendance,
team responsibilities, and professional behavior.
- Advanced Practice Experiences (formerly clerkship)
- Advanced Practice Experience is a term used to denote experiential
courses in the College of Pharmacy curriculum that are specifically
devoted to the clinical aspects of pharmacy practice. The
purpose of Advanced Practice Experience is to take the didactic
training that the students receive in class and teach them
how to apply it to real patients. This includes all aspects
of patient care including drug distribution, formulation,
pharmacotherapeutics, as well as outcomes management.
Advanced Practice Experiences are typically based on 4 week,
40 hours per week as a minimum. Most Advanced Practice Experiences
will require significantly more time per week than this depending
on the setting. Nine Advanced Practice Experiences are required
for the Pharm.D. degree. Pharm.D. students have five
required Advanced Practice Experiences and four elective Advanced
Practice Experiences. The five required Advanced Practice
Experiences are Ambulatory Care (8 weeks), Drug Information,
Adult Medicine(8 weeks), Community Practice, and either Pediatrics,
Geriatrics, or Oncology. The elective rotations can be chosen
from any available rotations. These courses are offered during
the final year for the Pharm.D. students. These programs differ
from the basic internship experiences and Practicum experiences
in that an emphasis is placed on patient care and pharmacotherapeutic
intervention on behalf of the patient. These experiences are
monitored very closely and student performance is assessed
by the instructor via the SUCCESS online evaluation system.
The student is given a grade based on their performance, willingness
to learn, and professional behavior.
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How to become involved
Here is a list of things that must be accomplished in order to start taking
students on clerkship or externship
- Appointment of instructors to Clinical Faculty. In order to be appointed
we need:
- Affiliation agreement signed by UF and Affiliated
Site. (Both the
site and UF will need a signed copy so make two)
- Creation of syllabus for each rotation offered.
- Approval of syllabus by clerkship site review committee.
- Site visit by a faculty member.
- Submission of Faculty Workload.
The Faculty Workload is a document that allows the faculty member to inform
the Office of Experiential Programs when they would be able to have students
during the year. The workload lists the starting dates for the rotations for
the next experiential year. The faculty member then decides which dates are
available and the number of students that could be accepted at any one time.
This information is crucial. Without it no students will be assigned to the
site. Once these items are taken care of the next step is to get students
assigned to the rotation.
Contact us for further assistance.
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Sample Syllabi
Here are four links to starting points for syllabi for rotation.
These files are in Rich Text Format and should open with most
any word processing application for editing.
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Programs Page
